Guns in class? Not here, say school officials

How many times have students at local school districts brought guns to school in the last two years? Zero, say local superintendents.

At least that’s how many times students were caught with firearms on school property.

Coeur d’Alene School District spokesman Scott Maben said that during the 2015-16 and 2016-17 school years, zero students were found to have brought firearms into Coeur d’Alene schools. Post Falls School District Superintendent Jerry Keane said his district also had zero such incidents during that same time frame.

The local school data is a little better than the national rates of guns showing up at schools. According to 2015 data from the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics, 4 percent of U.S. public school students carried a weapon of some sort onto school property at least once in the previous 30 days. However, that number included clubs, knives, and other weapons as well as firearms.

The number of weapons incidents in public schools has actually dropped by two-thirds since 1993, when 12 percent of students went to school with a weapon. It was also down substantially from 2013, when 5 percent of students went to school with a weapon. Only 1 to 2 percent of students carried a weapon onto school property more than once in the previous 30 days, according to the federal agency’s 2015 data.

Those numbers don’t tell the full story of what students endure these days, said Ed Santos, owner of Center Target Sports in Post Falls. He said he had recently talked with a group of young adults in Post Falls and was shocked at how many of them had witnessed or experienced bullying firsthand. There was just as much verbal as physical bullying, he explained.

The federal government’s data on guns and other weapons at school is spotty. The U.S. Department of Education’s most recent comprehensive report hails from the 2006-07 school year. The 1994 Gun-Free Schools Act requires schools to report to their district whenever a gun shows up at school. The districts are themselves supposed to report that information to state officials, who in turn are supposed to report it to Washington, D.C. In many cases, that isn’t happening. Also, not every weapon at a school may be reported to authorities.

Keane said his staff spends “a considerable amount of time training our students to report to an adult (parent, school employee, etc.) anything that they see or hear that may be a threat to them, other students, staff or the school in general.”

Students who bring a firearm to local school districts violate the 1994 Gun-Free Schools Act, state law, and district policy. In the Coeur d’Alene School District, students who bring weapons onto school grounds will be expelled for at least one calendar year. The district’s policy outlaws “possessing, controlling, or transferring” not only actual firearms, but “any object that can reasonably be considered, or looks like, a firearm.”

Keane said anything brandished against someone constitutes a weapon, and students with weapons will be immediately suspended and “would most likely face expulsion.”

Maben said weapons confiscated on campus by school staff are turned over to police, who then may follow up the student’s administrative penalties with criminal charges. Discipline for bringing knives, clubs, or other weapons to school is similar to that for firearms, said Maben and Keane.

Students enjoy the academic version of due process, however. Maben said students with weapons on school property are suspended until law enforcement completes an investigation. Coeur d’Alene School District policy 3330P states that the school board has the power to “modify the expulsion period on a case-by-case basis.” Those who violate the policy by unwittingly carrying a pocket knife to school may receive clemency if they fess up.

Keane said, “We try to use judgment regarding the difference between a student possessing a small pocket knife versus a fixed blade knife.”

“If a student realizes they have inadvertently come to school with a pocketknife in their coat or backpack, and they self-report the infraction, an administrator may determine that is not a violation of our policy,” said Maben.

Santos has dozens of certifications and decades of firearms instruction experience with law enforcement and the military. He said students and adults should be safe at schools, but their status as gun-free zones is a hindrance.

“The school system is a place where our children should feel safe,” he said. “The administrations of these school systems do the best they can to keep that environment safe. But the fact is that it is a gun-free zone when you don’t have a school resource officer there which means it’s a very vulnerable place for the children and adults alike.”

Eight school resource officers work in the Coeur d’Alene School District’s 17 schools. Each high school and middle school has one, and two rotate among the district’s 11 elementary schools, said Maben. Keane said his district has three school resource officers, stationed at Post Falls High School, Post Falls Middle School, and River City Middle School.

“Statistically, gun-free zones are where these acts of violence take place,” Santos said. “We need to do more to educate people on the reality of what a gun-free zone is. Bad guys prefer gun-free zones because there is less chance of them meeting resistance.”

He cited Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich, who said last September that guns were not the cause of the Freeman High School shooting. Students who grow desperate enough to murder their peers have been failed by the system, Santos added. “We need to be doing more up front in terms of awareness, training, and accountability” for students, he said.

The Lakeland School District did not respond to requests for information.