A Clarksville Schools faculty member, top right, carries an air-powered practice handgun to a classroom as firearms instructors, left, watch and students, lying on the floor, portray victims during a training exercise in Clarksville, Ark., in this July 11, 2013, file photo.LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Arkansas school districts can’t use a little-known state law to employ teachers and staff as guards who can carry guns on campus, the state’s attorney general said Thursday in an opinion that likely ends a district’s plan to arm more than 20 employees when school starts later this year.
Attorney General Dustin McDaniel, a Democrat, wrote in a legal opinion issued by his office that a state board that licenses private security agencies didn’t have the authority to allow districts to employ their teachers and staff as security guards. A state lawmaker requested the opinion a day after The Associated Press reported on a plan by the Clarksville School District in western Arkansas to use more than 20 teachers and staff as volunteer security guards armed with concealed 9 mm handguns.
“Simply put, the code in my opinion does not authorize either licensing a school district as a guard company or classifying it as a private business authorized to employ its own teachers as armed guards,” McDaniel wrote.
David Hopkins, Clarksville’s superintendent, said he had spoken with McDaniel earlier Thursday about the opinion. Hopkins said he was still reviewing the opinion but that “it sounds like he’s saying that we can’t do the program.”
“Obviously we’re going to comply with the law. We’re not going to break the law,” said Hopkins, who had appeared on NBC’s “Today” show Thursday morning to tout the program. “We wanted to provide the training and give the sense of a secure place for our parents and students. I tell you, this has really thrown a monkey wrench into it.”