SEATTLE — United States Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos proposed a plan to provide federal funding to get guns in the hands of school teachers.
DeVos' office has looked into the option, but whether or not the plan is official or very far along is unknown. Washington State Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal says he doesn't care — it's not going to happen in his state. He is making an effort to let Washingtonians know as much.
"What we don't need right now is for the public to believe that this is a state that is going to introduce the risk of their child dying of an intentional or accidental death, in a classroom for goodness' sake," Reykdal told KIRO Radio's Dave Ross. "I know it seems weird that we have to be so affirmative about this, but every time we see the secretary test these balloons out there, it creates this wave of anxiety, even when she doesn't ultimately go through with something."
“So we are doubling down, making it very clear to a million students, and two million parents and grandparents out there – we are not going to put weapons in our classrooms and people need to take a very deep breath about that in the State of Washington,” he said.
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DeVos’ idea finds a way around existing laws that prevent federal money from being used to purchase firearms. It would allow states the option of using the federal funds to buy guns for teachers.
“This is a pot of money out of a billion dollars of federal money, it’s only $15 million of it. This is the most flexible stuff we have; all the states get it,” Reykdal said. “It’s likely the secretary could go two ways. On one hand, she could say, ‘This is absolutely a permissive use,’ and tell all the states that. Or she could go one state at a time and say, ‘You need to ask me for a wavier, for permission to use this money for this purpose.’
“If that is the scenario, we will never ask for that wavier, we will not use this money that way,” he said. “Provided the state has flexibility, we will not authorize local school districts to buy firearms with taxpayer money that comes from the feds.”
Washington schools have three legal exceptions for when a gun in allowed on school property: police; military; and trained resource officers authorized by local school boards.
"At this point, in time the school resource officers are either commissioned trained officers, and occasionally we find a district that has trained and approved an administrator (to carry a firearm)," he said. "There are no teachers right now carrying weapons in our state."
Reykdal is not the only Washington state official who has responded to DeVos’ plan. Governor Jay Inslee has said that many schools are underfunded and have trouble buying classroom supplies which should be a funding priority — not guns. He said the idea “doesn’t deserve a minute of our time.”