Armed school staff debate sizzles at Eggs & Issues forum

Local lawmakers offered varying degrees of support for a bill that attempts to create a pathway for schools to arm staff members.

Sen. Lynn Evans, Rep. Megan Jones, Sen. Dave Rowley and Rep. John Wills discussed the proposal during the second Eggs & Issues forum last Saturday in Spencer. If passed and signed by the governor, House File 2586 would set standards for arming K-12 employees like creating a permit system for staff members who could carry firearms in school buildings.

The bill also attempts to ensure that districts allowing teachers to carry guns can buy insurance by granting them qualified immunity to protect them from lawsuits. Proponents hope that with qualified immunity and standards for permit holders, schools could buy affordable insurance.

Rowley (R-Spirit Lake) supported the bill as a way to impede school shooters from inflicting mass casualties.

"I've sat in meetings where [school employees] have come close to tears because they're so concerned with school safety and today's environment," he said. "The majority of parents involved in this discussion support this."

The Spirit Lake Community School District last year attempted to implement a policy that would arm certain staff members, but its insurer threated to drop coverage. Rowley said the district's plan was "comprehensive," and believed it was important for the Legislature to create a pathway for districts to arm employees without the stress of losing coverage.

"I think it's reasonable and a reasonable option," he said. "Nobody is telling school districts that they have to do this."

Evans (R-Aurelia) noted Iowa Code already authorizes school boards to allow certain personnel to be armed on school property. A former K-12 superintendent himself, he was unsure if he'd want to train school staff to address a shooting threat; however, he didn't support taking away a district's right to do so.

"I would certainly do the research," he said. "I would be of the mind to put professionals in the buildings. Since it's allowable in code already, I'm vehemently against restricting what they're allowed to do as a school board. That's wrong."

Wills (R-Spirit Lake) was the most vocal in his support of arming school staff. He noted some districts in northwest Iowa have a law enforcement response time of more than 30 minutes, which would allow a shooter to inflict untold levels of violence while staff and students wait for help.

"We need to be able to respond so they don't hurt our kids," he said.

Wills believed arming staff members posed the most logical solution to neutralizing a shooting threat. He said more than a dozen states already have laws on the books that allow such policies, and not one accident has occurred thus far.

"We have to understand that just having firearms in a school building does not make it unsafe," he said.

Wills noted several facets of the bill that he believed made it safe. Staff members who choose to be a part of armed protection programs would need a special permit that requires extensive training, quarterly shooting qualifications, legal training, medical training and scenario-based training.

In most cases, Wills said, armed staff members would be more certified than some law enforcement officers.

"These are good things that we can use as a deterrent – a last-ditch effort to stop somebody from shooting somebody else every six seconds," he said.

Using an unspecified incident to support his argument, Wills said there was recently a false alarm at a school district with a firearm-carry policy in place. He said armed employees were on scene to neutralize the threat within 30 seconds after receiving the call, while it took the school resource officer (SRO) five minutes to get there.

"That's the science we're talking about with this," he said.

Wills explained armed SROs aren't enough to prevent a shooter from killing and injuring students and staff. He said they could be stationed at a different building in the district or not on duty at all.

"I'm very passionate about this," Wills said. "These are really good things."

Jones (R-Sioux Rapids) noted that if the proposal is signed into law, school districts would be allowed to implement armed staff policies on a strictly voluntary basis.

"None of this is a mandate. Schools don't have to do this if they're not comfortable with it; teachers don't have to do this if they're not comfortable with it," she said. "We're opening some doors here, but if they don't want to do it they don't have to."