Longmont’s Twin Peaks Classical Academy will allow employees to carry guns
Longmont CO April 22, 2023 Longmont’s Twin Peaks Classical Academy is planning to become the first public school in the area to allow employees — excluding classroom teachers — to carry guns, as well as to hire at least one armed security guard through a private company.
No other schools in the St. Vrain Valley or Boulder Valley school districts have taken either step. The board at Twin Peaks, a PK-12 charter school authorized by St. Vrain Valley, voted to allow employees to be armed at a meeting earlier this month.
“I have been discussing it for a couple of years with the school leadership team,” Twin Peaks Executive Director Joe Mehsling said. “Every event that occurs, it has triggered us to reexamine what we do. This hurts my heart that we’re at this point, but we’ve got to do this.”
He said recent school shootings, including those at a Christian school in Nashville and an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, convinced school leadership to go forward.
There’s not a set date as to when employees will start carrying guns, with training required to be completed first. Once that happens, the school plans to add signage that it’s protected by armed security. But it doesn’t plan to identify which, or how many, employees are armed, citing concerns they could be targeted. The option will be open to about 30 of the school’s 90 employees. The rest are classroom teachers.
Mehsling said the school decided to exclude classroom teachers because, “in the event of an unthinkable tragedy, they’re not leaving their students.”
Based on Colorado law, school boards — including charter school boards — are allowed to designate teachers and staff members as school security officers permitted to carry a concealed weapon on campus.
St. Vrain Valley Superintendent Don Haddad said that, as long as a charter school is following state law, it’s entirely its board’s decision as an independently operated school.
He added the district isn’t considering arming employees, saying he’s happy with the security that’s provided by school resource officers. The district, through agreements with its various law enforcement agencies, has 22 armed school resource officers assigned to its schools.
Twin Peaks, as a charter school, would need to negotiate its own agreement for a school resource officer with Longmont police. Mehsling said the cost was prohibitive, prompting the school to instead decide to hire private security. He added the school has a good working relationship with Longmont police, but may need to to respond faster than the police can arrive if there’s an active shooter.
As reported by the Denver Post, Colorado doesn’t track where school employees are allowed to arm themselves. There also is no statewide training standard for school employees who carry guns and little guidance for school districts other than what their liability insurers provide.
The Colorado School Districts Self Insurance Pool, which provides insurance for multiple districts that allow employees to be armed, sets minimum training requirements that includes school active shooter training.
But Twin Peaks, as a charter school, is insured through a different company, which only requires that it follow Colorado statute, according to school officials. Though not required by state law or its insurance provider, Mehsling said, Twin Peaks will exceed the Colorado School Districts Self Insurance Pool training requirements.
Twin Peaks employees who want to carry a gun must apply and meet several requirements, including having a current concealed handgun permit and passing an active shooter training program that has been approved by the executive director. The employee also must attend regular supplemental training.
Mehsling used FASTER Colorado as an example of an active shooter training program, saying several of the school’s employees have gone through the program.
Laura Carno, executive director of FASTER Colorado, said her organization has trained employees at schools in 41 Colorado school districts so far and expects to add another 10 to 15 schools by the end of the year. The program is taught by active duty law enforcement instructors with SWAT team experience and held at law enforcement training facilities, she said.
“We’re training them in two things, stopping a killer and stopping the bleeding,” she said. “It’s about who is going to save the children between when it starts and when law enforcement gets there. It is just for that gap.”
In the level one class, she said, participants spend three days in a training session that includes practice with Airsoft guns in various scenarios, including classrooms and hallways. They end the class with a simulation used in police officer trainings that requires them to make decisions about who, and who not, to shoot.
Longmont school resource officer Sgt. John Garcia said the police department doesn’t take a position on how individual schools handle security. But he shared general concerns around a “good Samaritan” drawing a gun on an active shooter. Those include innocent people getting caught in the crossfire, along with the potential for police to mistake a good guy with a gun with the bad guy.
“If you’re trying to be a good Samaritan, it definitely provides another layer of complexity for officers responding, who are looking for somebody doing harm to others,” he said.
He added training is a must for anyone carrying a gun. He said officers go through a minimum of 20 hours of firearms training a year, including five hours of training on responding to an active shooter.
“If you decide to legally carry a firearm, it is imperative you do so responsibly by extensively preparing and training for any situation (in which) you may consider brandishing said firearm,” he said.
School resource officers receive additional training in building security and standard response protocols, he said, adding their focus is on building relationships and prevention by “lowering that threshold of silence” around concerning behavior.
“In an active situation, fast is never fast enough,” he said. “That’s why we spend so much time on the preventative pieces.”
Beverly Kingston, director of the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence at the University of Colorado Boulder, said the center hasn’t spent much time investigating arming school employees because “there’s not evidence that it is an effective strategy to prevent violence.”
To prevent school violence, she said, “you want to make sure that the staff and the students understand concerning behaviors related to violence, and they can recognize those behaviors and know what to do when they see them.”
A positive school culture and climate “where kids feel safe and people are watching out for each other” is another key prevention strategy, she said.
Mehsling said allowing employees to carry guns is just one piece of Twin Peaks’ layered approach to safety and security.
Other elements include regular training for staff members, with the school planning to contract with an outside organization next year to provide active shooter training. The school also holds monthly safety drills, promotes the state’s Safe2Tell system and works to get to know each student and family. When there’s a concern, the school uses threat assessments and student safety plans.
“Even adding these layers, we’ve reached this point where seconds count in a school shooting,” Mehsling said. “I’m going to exploit everything I can in the budget and the law to protect our students.”
