GCSD reviewing gun policy for peace officers

After adopting a policy to allow off-duty law enforcement officers to carry concealed firearms on school property in 2014, the Glenwood Community School District is once again looking at its safety protocols in light of recent school shootings and passage of a new state law.

The Iowa state legislature passed a bill last session which would allow off-duty officers to carry on school property without prior permission or approval of the school district. The language of the law prior to the new bill  allowed Iowa law enforcement officers to take guns to school only when their duty required them to do so.

The policy the GCSD adopted in 2014 allowed a carve out for off-duty officers “in good standing” to carry on school grounds after registering with the district.

The new law essentially nullifies Glenwood’s policy, however, Superintendent Devin Embray is still encouraging off-duty officers to register so the district can maintain communication with those officers. Currently just over 30 officers are registered with the district, according to Embray.

“Those are officers from in town, in the county and other agencies contiguous to Glenwood,” Embray said, adding the list also includes officers from Iowa and Nebraska jurisdictions.

Following the shooting deaths of 17 students and faculty at a high school in Parkland, Fla. on Feb. 14 – one of two-dozen school shootings already this year – and as part of the district’s efforts to continually upgrade and review its own security, Embray said the district began looking at adding additional security measures at its four school buildings.

The district is considering adding an off-duty officer to serve both before school and at dismissal times at the school buildings to add an extra-level of  law enforcement presence.

Embray said the idea is still in its infancy and very little detail has been ironed out, but the superintendent has met with the head of several law enforcement agencies that have officers living in the community. Those agencies, Embray went on to say, have been receptive to the idea and have agreed to forward the information onto their officers to gage their interest.

“We’re waiting to hear back from those agencies and have some meetings on just how that’d look,” Embray said.

Currently the district has an officer posted at the high school and middle school.

Embray doesn’t want to see schools become a prison ward, but having an off-duty officer in the building for an event or as part of this proposed policy would only improve the best security measure there is for the school district: deterrence.

“If someone wants to purposely cause carnage and damage, it will happen,” he said. “There’s very little we can do to stop that. All we can do is minimize that damage to the best of our ability.

“We talk about being as fortified as we can, but bad things can still happen. But is it minimized by that fortification? Absolutely. The more deterrence we can put in place the higher the possibility something bad won’t happen here.”

Embray said Glenwood, like most every school district, is constantly assessing its own security for that very reason. 

Bulletproof glass at entry doors was a consideration when the district underwent security upgrades a few years ago but the price tag was considered too prohibitive. The district did install panic alarms that could elicit a law enforcement response time of 60 seconds, Embray said.

“We have a huge advantage over some other districts in that we can get a law enforcement response very quickly,” he said. “A rural school district could have a three to five minute or more response time. So that’s a plus for us.”

Embray said he has also looked into metal detectors and both clear backpack-only and no backpack policies to prevent a weapon being brought into the building.

“We’re looking at a lot of things,” he said. “There’s a lot of different things we can do as a school district to improve safety and we’ll look at all of them.”

Embray said his feelings are “mixed” about the idea of arming teachers sa part of security improvements in the schools.

“Teachers’ primary function is to teach,” Embray said. “To also have the primary function on their mind of stopping a crisis and being able to perform in that crisis has a lot of ramifications. A lot would have to be worked out for me to be comfortable with that. I feel very comfortable with off-duty concealed carry and on-duty officers helping partner with the school district to be a part of our day. That’s kind of where I am with that.”

If the Iowa legislature did pass a bill that would arm teachers and administrators, he said he’d have to see a lot of oversight to support it.

“There would have to be a lot of criteria and a detailed checklist of things that need to happen on-going, not just one time, for me to be a champion of that,” Embray said.