Ark. AG: Schools can't arm teachers, staff

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Ark. AG: Schools can't arm teachers, staff

By ANDREW DeMILLO, Associated Press
Updated 2:41 pm, Thursday, August 1, 2013

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Arkansas school districts can't use a little-known state law to employ teachers and staff as guards who can carry guns on campus, the state's attorney general said Thursday in an opinion that likely ends a district's plan to arm more than 20 employees when school starts later this year.

Attorney General Dustin McDaniel wrote in a legal opinion issued by his office that a state board that licenses private security agencies didn't have the authority to allow districts to employ their teachers and staff as security guards. A state lawmaker requested the opinion a day after The Associated Press reported on a plan by the Clarksville School District in western Arkansas to use more than 20 teachers and staff as volunteer security guards armed with concealed 9 mm handguns.

"Simply put, the code in my opinion does not authorize either licensing a school district as a guard company or classifying it as a private business authorized to employ its own teachers as armed guards," McDaniel wrote.

David Hopkins, Clarksville's superintendent, said he had spoken with McDaniel earlier Thursday about the opinion. Hopkins said he was still reviewing the opinion but that "it sounds like he's saying that we can't do the program."

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Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/news/us/article/Ark-AG-Schools-can-t-arm-teachers-staff-4701402.php

[tumtum]

1. I never did like the idea of arming teachers or staff,

too risky.
A better solution would be to reinforce entry and classroom doors, install more cameras.
These would do more for school security than armed teachers or staff.

[Eleanors38]

2. We certainly don't need the Barbara Boxer method.