Teachers, it is said, have some of the hardest jobs in the world. The hours are long, and the rewards often intangible.
(WashingtonPost)- In addition to designing and executing lesson plans, grading homework and coordinating extracurricular activities, teachers are expected to be surrogate parents, offering children personal comfort and protection over the course of a long school day.
In recent years, teachers have also had to contend with a devastating reality: the increasing threat of school shootings.
While gun violence in the U.S. has significantly declined since the 1990s,mass public shootings are on the rise, and schools are now viewed as vulnerable targets. One of the deadliest in history claimed 28 lives, including 20 children, after Adam Lanza opened fire at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in 2012.
Last October, a gunman fatally shot nine people at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore.
These incidents, and every school shooting in between, have sent mourning parents and distraught education officials on a search for effective preventative measures.
One that has long been bandied about, and now being tested in schools countrywide, is allowing teachers to bring guns to school.
The Kingsburg Joint Union High School District in Kingsburg, Ca., is the latest district to pass such a measure. At a school board meeting on Monday, the Fresno Bee reported, members unanimously approved a policy that allows district employees to carry a concealed firearm within school bounds.
The employees will be selected by the superintendent, and will have to complete a training and evaluation process. The new policy was made effective immediately.
While proposals to arm teachers have been familiar refrains in Texas andIndiana, the passing of such a mandate on the West Coast signals that the strategy is being considered elsewhere in the country.