Post Falls school, safety leaders hold public forum

POST FALLS — A heightened sense of urgency and concern clashed with the reality of staffing and financial shortfalls Monday evening during a school safety forum at Post Falls High School.

Presented by the Post Falls School District and moderated by Post Falls Police Detective Neil Uhrig, the forum was attended by more than 40 people.

Many asked, "Why can't we arm teachers in schools?" and other questions borne of a country rattled by the Uvalde school shooting and other mass shootings in recent memory.

When asked why teachers don't carry firearms, Post Falls Superintendent Dena Naccarato said Idaho Code states the school board must act in order for that to happen.

“At this moment in time, our board has chosen not to act. That makes it against the law for our teachers to carry firearms,” Naccarato said. “The bigger concern for us as a school district is that teachers are not trained to use firearms the same way a police officer is, nor are teachers afforded the same protections that police officers are if they had to use lethal force. So, that is why we don’t have armed teachers in our building."

SWAT sniper team leader Ryan Dalke said from a law enforcement standpoint, a problem with this scenario is identification.

“As police officers, we all wear uniforms, we know what each other looks like,” Dalke said. “If a teacher’s armed, we may not know who they are. We don’t know all the teachers. If we see someone with a gun and if they happen to be shooting that gun, especially, we have to make a split-second decision on whether we’re going to shoot that person or not. In the moment, they may appear to be a threat. The last thing we want to do is to shoot a teacher instead of the bad guy.”

Naccarato and Dalke were joined on stage by Kootenai County Fire and Rescue Chief Chris Way, school resource officer and Post Falls Police Officer Annette Clark and Post Falls Police Capt. Mark Brantl.

The panel fielded questions from Uhrig and later from the audience regarding active shooter protocol, drug overdose prevention, armed guards and other points of concern for parents and guardians.

When asked about armed guards in Post Falls schools, Naccarato said money is needed to pay people for those positions.

"We would need to increase our supplemental levy and obviously work with the police department if we were to employ an armed guard-type situation,” Naccarato said. “If we were to have an armed guard in every building, the police department needs to meet these people, know who they are and make sure they’re appropriately trained."

That being said, she said the district's current supplemental levy would not cover more personnel, whether it be resource officers or armed guards. She said the district met with the police department earlier this summer to discuss the increase in school security needs amid law enforcement staffing struggles.

"We are still working through the different ideas that we had as a district and as a police department to try to mitigate the problems that we're having with regard to personnel," Naccarato said.

Another attendee brought up the response time and failure to protect the children at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde.

“If you look at the Uvalde case, if you look at what happened, the first minute after the shooter came to the door, in one minute what he was able to accomplish,” the audience member said.

"I do understand that, but I want you to know that we're Post Falls, Idaho," said Officer Annette Clark, who is a mom of students in the district as well as a school resource officer.

"I am trained to run towards the threat, and by all means, I'm going to run towards the threat. My partners are trained to run towards the threat, and we're going to run towards the threat," she said. "We don't turn away from a threat. And we're not going to wait for SWAT, 100%. We're Post Falls."

The Post Falls School District posts updates on its main page, pfsd.com, and uses a text-messaging system during emergencies.

“If parents are not getting them, we encourage them to call the district office so we can investigate,” Naccarato said. "We want to make sure we have everybody’s updated contact information. That’s absolutely critical."

Father of two Post Falls students Brian Parker said he feels the school and safety leaders are doing a great job with the resources they have.

However, times are changing, he said.

"Oftentimes we think lack of funding is our biggest problem," Parker said. "Sometimes, we need to be a little more creative and think past the funding issues to come up with solutions and just have a sense of urgency."

He said time will tell how productive the safety forum was.

"I think we need not wait for a problem to happen to start coming up with solutions," Parker said. "It's not until tragedy strikes that sometimes people start becoming engaged. But we can come up with creative solutions without having to experience these things firsthand."