St. Maries parents won’t know which teachers will have guns next year

ST. MARIES – Parents won’t be notified if their child’s teacher is carrying a gun in the classroom next year in eastern Benewah County.

“They can assume that everybody is armed,” Seth Stoke, chairman of the St. Maries School Board said in an interview Monday night after the board voted 4-0 to finalize a policy that will allow permitted staff to carry concealed firearms inside the district’s public schools.

The board developed the policy during the last school year in response to decades of school shootings across the nation, Stoke said.

Parents also won’t be allowed to appeal if they have specific concerns about a specific staff member’s decision to arm themselves in the classroom.

“The whole idea is not knowing who is carrying,” Stoke said, adding that parents always have the right to remove their child from the school.

Staff members who are approved to bring a gun to their school job must have an Idaho concealed carry license, which requires a national background check. Employees must use their personal firearms; guns will not be provided by the school district.

The board had a brief debate Monday about the final language for the staff application. Trustee Beth Halvorsen wanted to require all participants be employed by the district for at least two years before qualifying. Other trustees believed that should only apply to new employees who are also inexperienced carriers.

“It takes time to get to know somebody, their character, when things happen, how they react,” Halvorsen said. “I don’t think it’s a prudent idea to have a brand-new employee.”

Halvorsen said there have been past examples of the district hiring teachers who looked good on paper, but had issues that no one could have predicted before they were gone within two years.

Stoke and the other trustees pushed back and said that concerns about building trust are irrelevant since armed school employees will be anonymous. Only building principals will know which of their staff are carrying guns.

Halvorsen said it is still important for the employee, even if they are experienced in both education and firearms, to get to know the district first.

Stoke said he absolutely would trust someone new to the district with sufficient firearms experience and the defensive mindset that comes with it. Halvorsen was outvoted 3-1 on the application portion of the policy.

A previous draft of the policy was approved 4-1, with Trustee Jody Hendrickx voting against it. Hendrickx had to leave Monday’s meeting before the final vote.

At the March meeting, Hendrickx said he is not totally against the policy, but was concerned about feedback from staff and suggested tabling it for a few years to see how some of the district’s other safety measures work out.

“I would think you’d want to listen to your people on the front lines,” Hendrickx said. “They’re not real comfortable with this. They’re the people that are going to be there dealing with it, whether it’s good or bad.”

The policy is part of a larger strategy to improve security at the district including facilities upgrades. At Monday’s meeting the board also signed a three-year agreement with Panacea NW Region Corp., a Hayden-based school security consultant that will conduct emergency response trainings with staff and parents.

A clear majority of community members that responded to a district survey supported the policy while staff were about evenly split. Hendrickx said he believes the community and parent survey sample size was too small compared to the number of registered voters.

Many of the staff who are opposed commented they support the presence of an armed police officer instead. The survey was taken before the Benewah County Sheriff’s Office hired a school resource officer last month.

“I don’t believe it is a good idea for teachers to carry firearms at our school,” one staff member said. “With the behaviors being displayed at an elementary school level I fear an accident may happen.”

Others feared what could happen without the policy.

“We are sitting ducks and have zero protection if something terrible should happen,” another staff member wrote. “I want the ability to protect my students and myself.”