FREDERICK Okla_ Frederick high school
administrators are speaking out in response to recent talks of arming teachers
during class hours.
Yesterday, an Oklahoma
Lawmaker began working on a bill that would allow teachers and school
administrators who receive proper training to carry firearms. That idea is
drawing mixed reactions in Frederick.
Some said they
don't like the idea of guns inside classrooms, but they all agreed: if any one
should have to carry one, it should be a school administrator. Some teachers had
a different response.
"My heart
just goes out to them," Frederick High Cool Principal Randy Biggs said. "What
if that is one of our kids? I just can't imagine the heartbreak. It just floors
you."
Right now, Principal
Randy Biggs has monitors set up in his office to watch over the school and
reminds teachers to lock their doors. He said he isn't against carrying extra
protection to safe guard his students.
"I'm not
sure there is a solution altogether that will take care of it. Personally, I
don't have a problem. I'll do whatever I have to do to protect our schools. If
that means me carrying, that's fine, but I may not be here everyday."
Biggs isn't too
keen on the idea of teachers being allowed to have a gun, though, even if they
are registered to carry one.
"If I have
a teacher that can carry, what keeps a student from overtaking that teacher and
getting the weapon? Sometimes you create more problems with that."
History teacher
Starla Franklin believes being armed at school could work if teachers were
well-trained, but it wouldn't be her.
"I think
it's a little scary," Franklin
said. "I think it's a little intimidating to me. I do think that someone or
some people in the school being armed is a good idea."
English teacher
Amy Waldroop said she is currently working on getting her license to carry
firearms. She said she refuses to bring a gun to class.
"I don't
think that every teacher should be armed in this day and time," Waldroop said. "It's
hard to keep everything locked up and safe and secure."
No matter what
steps schools take to keep kids safe, they all agree something has to be done quickly.
"I think
it discourages people or makes them think twice about going into a school,"
Biggs said. "There is someone there to standup and be able to defend the school.
If that's what we need to do let's do it."
"I think
it's great that we're taking all of these measures," Waldroop said. "We need to
do everything we can to keep our little ones safe."
"I feel
bad that we have come to that," Franklin
said. "This is the place other than home that kids should feel safe."
Principal Biggs
said some staff and students wore green Tuesday, in honor of the victims of
last Friday's massacre in at Sandy Hook Elementary.
