There are better ways to improve school safety

First, as a teacher and counselor at Sandpoint Middle School, the husband of an elementary school teacher and a parent of children in the district, I want to make it clear that the following is my own opinion on the subject of arming teachers in our schools.

I think that the proposal is flawed. Were a school shooting to happen in Bonner County, it would be a tragedy, to be sure. However, the statistical probability that a child, anywhere in the U.S., will be killed in a school shooting in any given year is about one in a million. In comparison, the odds of being struck by lightning are about one in 700,000.

Given those odds, it seems to me that there are many more proposals that the board of trustees should give higher priority to.

I know that a priority for our building is a printer/copy machine that doesn’t break down and require service almost weekly. We have U.S. history textbooks that are at least 10 years old, and in poor shape. Our student lockers are also in rough shape. SMS has one gymnasium (as does SHS), which multiple PE classes, after-school extracurricular activities, and community-based clubs and organizations compete for time in. An auxiliary gym (or two) would see a lot of use.

District teachers could use more time to develop their curriculum to align with the Idaho Common Core state standards. Although enrollment at SMS has remained steady for the past few years, our staffing has been cut, so that several classes are now near (and in some cases, above) 30 students, and many core subject-area teachers are seeing over 135 students per day. The new standards require more student writing in all subject areas, so teachers could use more time, per student, to critically evaluate and provide meaningful feedback to student writing. More teachers, resulting in lower student/teacher ratios, would be one way to provide this additional time.

Furthermore, the idea that teachers would be discretely carrying 1911-style handguns, to my knowledge the only type currently available with the Intelligun technology, seems impractical. These are not the type of handguns one generally considers concealed-carry weapons. They are bulky and heavy, and would be difficult to conceal. Although the Intelligun technology is intended to prevent a bad guy or student from using the gun, it also prevents other good guys from using it should the intended user become incapacitated.

What if no teachers in a building volunteer for this duty? In any building? What about unintended consequences? Friendly fire? Even trained police officers miss their targets and have accidental discharges. How long before some parents would be demanding the right to bring weapons into schools? Higher insurance costs? Parents withdrawing their children from school? Teachers leaving the profession?

If providing extra armed security at our schools is deemed one of our highest priorities, I think there are better ways to accomplish this goal. Hiring additional, already-trained school resource officers seems the most practical, in my opinion. Obviously, how to pay for them would be the next question.

TODD RILEY

Sandpoint