Group asks school board to holster its gun program Cite expense, liability, bad feelings

A coalition of Cherokee School District residents has demanded the suspension of a policy that will allow up to 45 staff members to carry firearms on school grounds. 

A four-page letter sent to the school board on Monday accused the board and Supt. Kim Lingenfelter of “unanswered questions, lack of transparency and funding discrepancies” when it passed the policy in November. Lingenfelter and board President Jodi Thomas declined to comment on the coalition’s four-page letter because it was received in the public-comment period of Monday’s school board meeting. 

Lingenfelter noted the board can’t discuss anything that isn’t specifically listed on the agenda; the coalition claims to have requested a special discussion with the board, but were denied because the board couldn’t arrange for its attorney to sit in on the meeting. 

“As taxpayers, parents and community members, we urge the board to immediately suspend any expenditures associated with training teachers as armed professionals,” the letter reads. “At this time, we ask that you invest in policies and practices that truly make our schools safer for everyone.”

One after the other, coalition members outlined their complaints from the policy, believed to be the most expansive school-firearms plan in the state in terms of staff. The district is expected to oversee up to 45 — or a third of its workforce — carrying firearms on school grounds. 

That amount of people with firearms will no doubt create unintended financial stress for the district, the coalition claims. Its most pressing concern was how the district would shoulder what it believes will be a tremendous insurance liability and expensive training regimen. The group claimed Gov. Kim Reynolds’ $100 million school safety initiative won’t cover the expense of arming and training the 45 staff members because the initiative only covers capital improvements. 

Reynolds’ initiative, which was announced last June in response to a mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, dedicated federal COVID-19 relief funding toward school safety improvements, assessments and mapping technology that would inform the assessments’ recommendations.

“Although the assertion made to the board and the community that this policy and everything included will be covered by Gov. Reynolds’ School Safety Initiative, the Reynolds Administration has made very specific guidelines as to what is covered by these grants and how they are made available,” the coalition's letter reads. “A cursory reading of the vulnerability assessment and school safety improvement fund policy explicitly states these grant monies are solely for capital improvements.”

Funding from the initiative requires a safety and vulnerability assessment, which can only identify capital improvements that fall under “entry control, electronic security and communication systems, barriers, perimeter security, illumination and building envelope,” the coalition claims. Training of any kind can’t be cited in the assessment, the coalition added.

The board has not yet incurred any cost from the trainings. They are scheduled for this summer.

Those who pass the trainings and other screenings — Lingenfelter has declined to specify exactly what those are — will be allowed to carry firearms on campus.

At that point, the financial implications become much more serious, the coalition fears. Implementing the policy requires approval from its insurance carrier, EMC of Des Moines. The district has not received a response on whether it would be dropped by arming a third of its workforce. The Washington Post reported in 2018 that school districts in 10 states that allowed firearm carrying on their campuses had problems finding interested carriers. The districts in those states had to band together to keep premiums down, the Post reported. 

Cherokee's problems are two-fold:

• EMC stopped insuring school districts in Kansas after the state legislature there allowed teachers to carry guns. Almost none of the school districts in the state utilized the new law because of EMC’s trepidation, the Post reported. EMC has not responded to the Cherokee Chronicle Times’ queries whether the insurer would drop the school district. 
• The district also doesn’t have a bevy of counterparts interested in enacting the same policy. The only other district in a 100-mile radius to enact a similar policy is Spirit Lake, which authorized 15 staff members to carry guns.

The coalition worries the insurance liability will be enormous. 

The coalition claims arming each teacher — after training and assessments that will also be the district’s responsibility — at $10,000 each, the same amount as professional malpractice insurance. Lingenfelter declined comment on the coalition’s estimate. Megan Julius, a spokeswoman for the group, said the estimate factored insights from “multiple” insurance brokers. 

If the estimate proves true, the district will face annual insurance costs near $500,000. 

“Even if the cost to provide insurance for one armed teacher costs half (professional malpractice insurance), insuring 36 armed teachers could cost $180,000 annually,” the coalition’s letter continues. “This is the equivalent of two to four classroom teachers.”

Thomas declined to comment on whether the board will overturn the policy, which is the coalition’s goal. 

Each of the five school board members remained silent as the coalition outlined its list, ranging from financial implications to a bad-faith approval process.

“To edit any policy, the policy in question would first have to be a separate agenda item labeled as ‘discussion/ action of,’ then the board could vote on it,” said Thomas in response to a question about the coalition’s aims. 

Julius claims the five-member group has measures at its disposal to force the board’s hand. The coalition this week submitted a Freedom of Information Act request with Lingenfelter and the board members for electronic communications about changing the weapons policy. Lingenfelter’s office must respond to the request by next month. 

Julius intends to focus on how the board arrived at the policy change. District stakeholders’ opinions on the its merits are mixed. But Julius believes the majority of the school district doesn’t approve of the manner in which the policy was passed. And she believes a majority of district residents don’t approve of the current administration for reasons she declined to specify. 

“There needs to be some change on the school board,” Julius declared. As for Lingenfelter, she said, “I’ve had some thoughts on her for a while.”

Julius said the district’s weapons policy emerged after a closed session in August. Not one public information session was held in advance of the board vote and the only expert the district offered was months after the vote, basically affirming the board’s convictions that armed teachers are necessary to prevent a school shooting. The expert, Ed Monk, has been described by critics as a pro-gun advocate instead of a researcher. 

“We have a lot of stuff in our back pocket,” said Julius when asked about the extent of the coalition’s efforts to overturn the policy. “We’re not gonna stop until this is overturned.”