School board advances firearms restrictions on second reading
The policy aims to require training hours and weapon inspection for employees or volunteers who wish to carry on school grounds. The trustees also gave the superintendent a raise.
In their last regular meeting during which firearms were forbidden from the room, the Albany County School Board continued working on a policy with which it hopes to mitigate the consequences of new state legislation.
Earlier this year, lawmakers approved, and the governor refused to halt, a near total repeal of gun-free zones on school grounds, college campuses and other government facilities.
In response, the Albany County School District No. 1 is imposing training requirements, mandating psychological evaluations and adding obligatory weapon inspections for teachers, other employees or volunteers who want to carry.
School Board Chair Beth Bear said the trustees are doing everything they’re allowed to under the new law to limit guns, or their potential impact, on school grounds.
“We are not willingly allowing guns in school,” Bear said. “Our community for the most part was opposed to this, as, I think, is our board.”
At the same meeting Wednesday, the school board approved a salary increase for its superintendent.
Inspecting weapons, informing parents
Beginning July 1, members of the public may bring concealed firearms into school board meetings, legislative town halls, high school theater performances, and other public events hosted in school facilities.
“I get real anxious about highly charged events like sporting events,” Bear said. “We need to work with our police department and the sheriffs and our SROs to have a really visible presence at those more than we normally do … If we can’t prohibit it, I think there’s probably things that we can do to at least make everybody safer.”
The school board is forbidden from restricting the public’s right to conceal carry on its campus. But it can put sideboards on how teachers and employees exercise that right.
The proposed Policy 5050 does just that, requiring that anyone working for the school district who wishes to carry must first be approved. Approval requires a level of firearms training equivalent to that expected of Laramie Police Department officers.
Several school districts across the state are putting similar requirements on the books, but Albany County is pursuing the strictest set — 63 total hours of initial training, plus a full psychological evaluation and annual refresher training totaling at least 18 hours per year.
The district’s explicit goals are twofold: requiring significant training for those who wish to carry guns around children and adding enough friction to the process that many opt not to bother.
“Albany County School District No. 1 strongly opposes the Legislature’s repeal of gun free zones in K-12 public schools,” the draft policy states in its preamble. “Guns simply have no place in our schools and will not make them safer for employees and students. The following policy is an effort to mitigate, within the prescriptive constraints imposed by the Legislature, this dangerous and unwelcome overreach.”
On the policy’s second reading Wednesday, the trustees added language requiring that LPD inspects any firearm employees or volunteers intend to conceal on school grounds.
“The inspection will include, but is not limited to, verification of mechanical integrity, functioning safety mechanisms, proper maintenance, and absence of any alterations that could compromise the safe operation of the firearm,” the draft policy states. “Firearms must be in good working condition and appropriate for safe concealed carry by employees/volunteers.”
Trustee Emily Siegel-Stanton asked the room to consider whether the board could or should forbid teachers from telling their students if they’re armed.
“One of the worst fears would be that a student could get their hands on a staff’s firearm,” she said.
Trustee Carrie Murthy said that suggestion was in tension with other policy goals.
“I am recalling, from our community feedback session, parents wanting to be informed,” Murthy said. “If parents know, students are going to know … is it something that is appropriate for parents to know so they can make informed decisions, or is it not?”
Superintendent John Goldhardt was hesitant.
“I would just add a caution on both of those issues with people knowing,” he said. “Because what will end up happening is you’re going to have classes divided by political ideology instead of the heterogeneous way that is best for kids.”
The board took no action on this specific feedback during second reading, but could during the policy’s third reading next month.
Student weapons
Unlike members of the public or employees of the school district, students are altogether forbidden from carrying on campus.
Because of their age, most would not qualify for a concealed carry permit. But even if they did, they would still be barred by state law from carrying a firearm, concealed or otherwise, on school grounds.
In addition to advancing its personnel concealed carry rules, the Albany County School Board also passed, on first reading, an amendment to its student weapons policy.
The amendment makes two changes:
Whereas students were previously allowed to keep “unloaded guns lawfully stored inside a locked vehicle,” the new policy deletes this language, thereby forbidding it, and;
Whereas the policy previously failed to define “pocket-knives,” the new policy distinguishes between blade lengths. It declares “fixed blade knives [and] pocket-knives with blades longer than two and one-half inches” as “Type 2” weapons and “pocket-knives with blades shorter than two and one-half inches” as “Type 3” weapons.
The policy categorizes several specific weapons into three types.
Type 1 means firearms. Possessing a Type 1 weapon is prohibited and doing so carries a punishment of a one-year expulsion;
Type 2 means weapons “used or designed to inflict bodily injury and/or to intimidate other persons” and includes switchblades, stars, long knives, chains, brass knuckles and more. Possessing a Type 2 weapon is also prohibited and doing so carries a punishment up to and including a one-year expulsion;
Type 3 means devices “designed for other purposes but which are being used or threatened to be used to inflict bodily injury and/or intimidate” and includes pencils, scissors, small pocket-knives and more. Brandishing a Type 3 weapon will earn a student an immediate suspension and other potential discipline.
The motion to approve the policy on first reading passed unanimously. It will need to pass a second and third reading before it can be added to the books.
Superintendent pay bump
After a 17-minute executive session, the trustees reconvened for one final action: raising the superintendent’s salary.
Goldhardt was first hired for a three-year contract in 2022 with a salary of $170,000. That two-year contract was renewed last year, this time as a three-year contract set to run from 2024-2027. There was no salary raise included in that renewal but Goldhardt did earn five more vacation days.
The school board gave the rest of their employees a significant pay increase last year — a $3/hour raise for classified employees and a $2,500/year raise for certified staff — and the trustees plan to dole out another raise this summer. It’s all part of an effort to make teacher and other employee compensation competitive with school districts across the state.
The trustees voted unanimously Wednesday to bump Goldhardt’s salary up from $170,000 to $174,000. Coming amid the other raises, Chair Bear said the bump was meant “to be in line with our other employees.”
The addendum to Goldhardt’s contract also resets the clock so that the three years on his contract start over next month and run through June 2028.