An attempt by a school district in Arkansas to use a little-known state law to allow teachers to be trained as guards in order to carry guns has been thwarted by the state's attorney general, according to the Associated Press.
A state lawmaker requested that Attorney General Dustin McDaniel, a Democrat, issue an opinion as to the legality of the plan by the Clarksville School District. McDaniel determined that the state board that licenses security companies could not license teachers as security guards, according to Al.com.
"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 in his opinion.
Over the summer teachers and administrators in the Clarksville School District have been undergoing training on how to handle firearms and how to respond to an incident like a school shooting. Superintendent David Hopkins instituted the program after parents expressed concerns about the safety of their children following the tragedy in Newtown, Conn., according to the Associated Press.
"Obviously we're going to comply with the law. We're not going to break the law," Hopkins said. "We wanted to provide the training and give the sense of a secure place for our parents and students. I tell you, this has really thrown a monkey wrench into it."
The Lake Hamilton School District has used the same law to train administrators as security guards for years, although the administrators in Lake Hamilton keep the guns locked up and do not carry them. Steve Anderson, superintendent of Lake Hamilton School District, told the Associated Press that the district has had their license for 25 years.
"We'll take appropriate measures and I imagine this is something that will eventually be settled in a court of law or the legislature," Anderson said.
In February the state legislature debated a bill that would allow for certain school employees to carry concealed firearms if they had completed a 40-hour training course offered by a state law enforcement training academy. The House rejected the bill, according to the Associated Press.
"If a school district were indeed functioning as a 'guard company,' then, it would be organized to provide services to any and all 'customers' purely for the purpose of generating income - a private business motivation that is self-evidently anathema to a school district's purely public functions," McDaniel wrote.
