The St. Vrain Valley School District board unanimously approved moving forward with the storage of rifles at two high schools.
The Boulder County Sheriff’s Office requested that long rifles be stored at Lyons Middle Senior High School and Niwot High School as a preventative measure against school shootings. After some questions about liability and how the board would be informed of safety measures for the storage of these rifles, the proposal was approved Wednesday.
The school board has held two workshops with the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office about this topic, one in August and one last week, and the proposal would be consistent with what was discussed then.
The sheriff’s office cited the isolation of the two schools as a major reason to keep the long rifles inside. While school resource officers have access to this type of gun in their cars, in the event of a school shooter emergency it would likely be too far away to be useful, while response times to these specific schools by other officers might take too long.
Additionally, the handguns that SROs keep on their person are only meant for short range use. The hallways of Niwot and Lyons mean that a shooter could be nearly 100 yards away, rendering handguns inaccurate and unreliable.
The rifles will not immediately go into the schools, as the district is pursuing several measures to ensure their security including the use of biometric safes. Superintendent Don Haddad assured the board that the rifles would not be placed in the schools until he was certain of their security.
The board would also be updated on these measures, but Haddad requested that the board not vote yes on Wednesday if they were uncertain about moving forward entirely.
One parent spoke up during the public comment section of the meeting in reference to the rifle storage proposal. The Niwot resident said despite her extensive experience and use of firearms, she opposed keeping guns in schools.
“This concept of storing weapons in a school in my personal opinion is that it’s a bad idea,” she said. “Because the students in the school are actually more clever and more admirably fiendish than the grown ups.”
She pushed for evidence-based trainings for teachers and staff to respond to active shooter situations instead.
