Well, we all knew it was coming, eventually, some po-dunk school in South Dakota would take up the state legislature on the School Sentinel law;
The Tri-Valley School District is considering a policy that could change the look of school safety in South Dakota.
On Monday night, the school board passed the first reading of a school sentinel policy that would allow the district to arm certain employees.
I guess I never expected a school that large to take up the suggestion. Either way, whether you are for or against this (I’m against it) it seems the school board was being sneaky about the way they went about it.
Like I said, there is mountains of evidence why this is a very bad idea, but let’s not talk about that.
The school board decided to try to sneak this under the radar;
The second and final reading of this policy will be on April 11, which is open to the public.Â
Yes, they mentioned it in some agendas, but notice they took the first reading without any input. It should have not gotten to first reading if the media would have known about their intentions ahead of time.
Cory also points out the continuing secrecy;
The icing on this bad policy is the secrecy clause. Parents will have no right to know which staff are carrying deadly weapons in school. Parents get no check on the board’s decision, no opportunity to say, “Good grief! They let that yahoo carry a gun? I don’t think so!†Parents get no opportunity to pull their children from an armed teacher’s classroom and demand that their children be placed in classrooms where no guns are present.
I’m willing to bet that most parents would be against an armed sentinel at Tri-Valley, but I guess we will wait and see.
l3wis 