 - The Fremont County School District 2 Board of Trustees will hold a work session meeting at 6 p.m. Tuesday, April 1, in the Board Room at the District Administration Building, 700 N. First St. in Dubois.){kind=link}
(Dubois, WY) – The Fremont County School District 2 Board of Trustees will hold a work session meeting at 6 p.m. Tuesday, April 1, in the Board Room at the District Administration Building, 700 N. First St. in Dubois.
The agenda includes an executive session discussion on safety and security.
Superintendent Steve Splichal requested the executive session earlier this month, explaining that “part of” the meeting would include “some conversations around concealed carry.”
“That could be a fairly lengthy conversation,” Splichal said during a school board meeting March 18.
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Splichal also took some time during the March 18 meeting to discuss House Bill 172 – now House Enrolled Act 24 – which allows people with concealed carry permits to carry concealed weapons at government meetings, public schools, and public colleges or universities in the state beginning July 1.
“We’ve got to start to kind of digest this 900-pound gorilla,” Splichal said.
HB 172 allows local school boards to adopt rules and regulations for employees and volunteers who lawfully carry concealed weapons on school property under the new law, Splichal said, noting that those rules would “only apply to our staff and to those volunteers” – not to members of the public with valid concealed carry permits.
According to the legislation, the rules that school boards adopt must require employees and volunteers carrying firearms to maintain the firearms on their persons at all times, or in concealed biometric containers or lock boxes that are within their direct control at all times.
The rules must also establish ongoing training requirements, curricula, and instructor qualifications in consultation with local law enforcement, including an initial course of training comprised of at least 16 hours of live fire handgun training and eight hours of scenario-based training using nonlethal training, firearms and ammunition, plus annual firearm qualifications and documented recurrent training of at least 12 hours with an approved instructor.
Splichal referred to those requirements as “very minimum stipulations,” pointing, for example, to the robust policies the Lander School Board approved several years ago allowing staff to carry concealed weapons on Fremont County School District 1 property.
He asked the Dubois School Board to study Lander’s policies and HB 172 “between now and the April 1 work session” so they would be ready to start discussing the policy FCSD 2 might want to create.
If the board decides to move forward with creating a policy, Splichal suggested scheduling several meetings with staff and community members as part of the process, and he recommended a review of similar policies other school boards have implemented as well.
“Our policy language is going to be paramount in this work,” he said. “If by July 1 we’ve got policy language – if that’s the path and the plan that you would choose to take – I think (we’re) going to be doing pretty good.”
If the school district doesn’t adopt rules and regulations associated with the new law, employees and volunteers with concealed carry permits will still be able to carry their concealed weapons onto school property beginning July 1, Splichal pointed out.
“In the absence of policy language … anybody can conceal carry at that point, provided that they have a Wyoming license,” he said. “So there will be no capacity to place any kind of limitations in the absence of policy.”
Trustee Erica Harris said she felt “very strongly that we need to have a policy (in) place,” preferably “before we start school in August,” and others agreed, noting that the board can always amend the policy as needed once it is approved.
Splichal agreed that “this is going to be something that’s going to go through edits and revisions.”
“I fully expect that there’s going to be the potential for some legal challenges,” he added. “Maybe some of those challenges are going to require you to make some amendments to that policy language.”
Board Chair Tracy Nguyen echoed those comments, predicting that “this will play out in the courts,” so “we’re going to have to be mindful that we can refine this policy as we move forward.”
“As a board, we have the ability to amend our policy as we see fit for our school district,” she said. “We can take advantage of that as we learn more. So don’t let perfect be the enemy of good, right? Let’s get it done.”
For more information, call FCSD 2 at (307) 455-5545.