North Idaho’s Lakeland School District will move to hire an armed guard this summer, as part of a larger plan to place a guard in each school.
The district’s top priority is to install a guard at Athol Elementary School, the Coeur d’Alene Press reported. It took law enforcement 22 minutes to respond to one recent 911 call at the school, Assistant Superintendent Lisa Sexton told the Press.
The district hopes to add armed guards at all 11 schools, according to the Press. The $42,000 for the first hire will come from a two-year, $17.98 million supplemental levy voters approved in March 2017.
“We held two town hall meetings and taxpayers have said, ‘If we have to pay for armed guards, we will pay for armed guards,'” Sexton told the Press.
The district hopes to have the guard hired before the start of classes in the fall. The district will remove gun-free zone signs at the school, and replace them with signs that say armed personnel are on the premises.
