My daughter is an elementary school teacher, we were having our weekly dinner together and this subject came up. She asked if she should "secretly" take her handgun to school saying, "what if" . I was proud and scared at the same time. I told her she would be fired if she was caught, she agreed. it was frustrating for her not being able to at least "try" to keep her kids safe. She said maybe only a couple may get hurt if I could do something. I then told her she could be killed trying to protect her kids, she said she would be anyway if a "shooter" came into her class room. hummmmm, scary

I steered the subject to schools should have a private security firm with uniformed, well trained, heavily armed "AR rifle" person at every school.

Any teachers here?? Share your thoughts with us on this sticky subject.

My wife is a kindergarten teacher she said she isn't sure if she would want to be but she has other teacher friends that have stated they would gladly be armed.

Any place that restricts the ability of citizens to defend themselves should be armed with law enforcement officials that are prepared to defend the citizens if necessary. No gun-free zone should be without an armed guard.

As for teachers, I'm split on it. I don't want teachers to become the first target for any shooter because the shooter knows they're the only one who is armed. But a completely unarmed target isn't a good thing either.

I really think the solution is armed guards. Sandy Hook, Columbine, etc. could have been prevented or minimized with these sort of measures taken.

Several teachers, administrators, and coaches carry concealed at our school....public...

Yes they should, with proper screening and training.

if you can pass a screening to be a teacher you can own a gun. There should be specific classes given to the teachers something more in depth than a legal to carry class.

Only if they promise never to do cartwheels while not wearing underwear in the classroom....

If properly trained/licensed/screened, certain school staff members should be armed in the case of any threat to take as many lives as possible arises.

Texas public schools don't drug test. If teacher passed a drug test I wouldn't have an issue with them carrying.

As long as they don't have a criminal record which prohibits them, then I am good with it.

I think they need to do some training on the range like police officers do.

Absolutely!

Absolutely, they should be armed. They should also have to have a certain level of proficiency . I spent about 6 months last year as an armed security guard at a charter school in Keller. It was an eye opening experience for me. Probably for the staff as well. I might be a redneck. I have no LEO background, no military background.
The teachers surprised me with their level of awareness. They called me many times to check out suspicious vehicles or people. Kids are our most precious assets. They should be guarded like Ft Knox.

In response to mustafa's point about teachers not being drug tested-anyone who drives a school bus that has a commercial driver's license, such as coaches, band/choir directors, drama teachers or any other extra curricular activity director, ARE randomly drug tested.

Yes they should have the option!

Like police officers do? From what I hear from officers, people that have trained officers they are not required to do much shooting and the ones that they have seen shoot are pretty bad. I would hope they would be better trained shooters then police officers.

I was watching an interview with an actor that grew up in Compton cali and he said back when he was in high school the teachers were armed.

I'm with others. Some should - but only after they get training and show real competency. Plus agree to drug tests. Something akin to LEO training.

IMO just passing the LTC class ain't enough. I've seen some pretty incompetent folks get their LTC.

It shouldn't be an option, it should be required.

Making it a requirement of employment would go a long way in ridding our schools of liberal gun hating snowflake teachers......

I'm not armed, but it isn't far from me at all times.

Hell yeah!

yes, they should be allowed to volunteer and get trained

My wife is a teacher, my mother was a teacher, her mother is a teacher-you get the idea. My wife has a CHL but I don't think that makes her anywhere near qualified to defend a campus. I like the idea of having few qualified people on every campus carrying. By qualified, I mean extensive training and frequent refreshers/additional training. A teachers primary responsibility during a crisis is to lock and barricade their doors and hunker down with their kids. You can't have a bunch of poorly trained, armed teachers running around a campus while law enforcement is trying to respond. I would think it would probably work better with principals, counselors, admin, etc. because they don't actually have classes filled students.

I'm a bus driver and a CHL holder. I do not carry when I drive but I wish I could. The school buses are sitting ducks. Very soft targets. 60 kids confined to a very small space with zero protection. With proper training I am good with teachers and staff carrying.

Several of us from church went out to shoot when our security team was being formed. It was unnerving as to how many so called gun people could not handle their firearm. While I'm not the best shot in the world, at least I hit the target every time. Training is key, and it needs to be both classroom and range time on an ongoing basis.