The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut last December sparked a major debate about guns on campus.
The debate hit home for those in the Eagle Point School District here in Oregon.
“I think it’s a slippery sloped but I think it’s something that truly needs to be debated and I think that its something that needs to be taken seriously,” says mother and White City resident Lisa Findley.
That’s why school board President Scott Grissom put together a committee of 15 members.
The committee is made up of district staff, parents, weapons experts and the city’s police chief.
The group is debating the pros and cons of arming school staff.
Findley says “As a citizen it’s part of our rights, I think that people forget that teachers are regular people too.”
Jim Mannenbach has been on the Eagle Point School Board for 4 years.
At the last meeting he spoke not as member of the board but rather a concerned community citizen.
He says “school safety is supposed to be the number one goal and if school safety is the number one goal then maybe guns in schools isn’t the best option.”
The proposal is getting mixed reaction from residents.
“It depends upon who those teachers are and how am i to know, it’s a conundrum, sad world,” says resident Laura Atwater.
A conundrum that may not ever have a resolution.
The meeting is scheduled to go till 8 tonight.
It is open to the public.
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