More than 60 school trustees and administrators crowded a large meeting room at the Boise Centre Thursday morning as Kimberly Superintendent Luke Schroeder and sixth-grade teacher Brad Carlson detailed their district’s armed staff policy.

“If we can delay that shooter by five seconds, we may have just saved some of these lives,” said Schroeder.

Schroeder started the presentation with some statistics: On average, someone gets shot every 4.7 seconds in a mass shooting. Eighty percent of the killing is going to happen in the first 30 seconds.

Before teaching sixth grade, Carlson was a U.S. Army Cavalry Scout and southern California police officer who trained officers and teachers to handle active shootings. He laid out the tactics and procedures Kimberly uses.

“My goal for this is not to create gunfighters and gunslingers. The goal is to mitigate a threat before it ever shows up to our school,” Carlson said.

Training against school shooters has also become more difficult in recent years, he said.

“Bad guys are learning our tactics, techniques and procedures,” Carlson said. “They know the doors are locked; they’re now ballistically breaching. They’re shooting out windows – it just happened in Bend, Oregon.”

Locked doors are still the best measure against a shooter, Carlson repeatedly explained: “All the armed staff on the planet isn’t going to change anything if they can just walk through the doors.”

He also recommended installing ballistic film on school windows to help stop bullets.

Layered security is the goal, Carlson said: fences, cameras, ballistic windows, locked doors and, in Kimberly, signage indicating that staff members are carrying guns.

Recently, the Marsing and Homedale districts adopted Kimberly’s policy for themselves. Homedale Superintendent Rob Sauer said the district just purchased 73 “armed staff” signs, one for every entryway.

Carlson recommended schools implement a behavioral threat assessment plan as well.

“We have a student at our school right now that we’re starting to put that (plan) into place because they’re making all sorts of weird statements. They like guns; they’re a loner, right? We’re starting to check all these boxes,” Carlson said.

Even if a student proves not to be a threat, he said educators should document the indicators for future teachers and schools to be aware of.

Kimberly trains teachers like cops

Idaho police officers must spend four hours shooting on the range every two years. Kimberly School District requires its armed staff to spend 16 hours shooting each year.

The training isn’t just plinking cans, Carlson said. He ensures they are training specific skills, like decision making, threat identification, and how to interact with law enforcement so staff don’t get shot by responding officers.

But before they get to that point, staff members must pass a physical agility test, psychological evaluation and 40 hours of training.

“You’d be surprised how many are weeded out by the agility test,” Schroeder said.

Trustees voice concerns

“If two high school boys take down and steal the gun from the person, they’ve got access,” said Bonneville Trustee Randy Smith.

“If two students become that combative that they’re physically assaulting that teacher with the attempt to take a firearm, we have a much different issue on our hands. … You need to deal with that threat,” Carlson said in response.

Carlson brought up another hypothetical: a teacher’s gun flies out of its holster while attempting to intervene in a fight. His solution: don’t intervene.

“I shouldn’t be in there trying to engage two students fighting, especially at the high school level,” Carlson said.

Staff members who are trained to physically intervene with students during behavioral incidents cannot carry in Kimberly. 

“They had to pick: Are you going to be Mandt trained, or are you going to be an armed staff? I can’t have an armed staff member potentially rolling around … with a student.”

One trustee asked about the legality of allowing staff members to have guns on campus.

Idaho law allows school boards to decide whether to allow firearms on campus, Schroeder pointed out.

Another trustee asked about training costs.

Kimberly spends around $1,000 to train each staff member to carry in school. The largest expense is the $500 psychological evaluation, Schroeder said.

Sauer said Homedale has partnered with local businesses to cover many of the training costs. Homedale and Marsing staff will train with the Owyhee County Sheriff’s Office. 

The Kimberly educators also fielded a question about elementary students feeling a staff member’s gun when hugging them.

Schroeder said it’s not an issue, and if a student does feel something, he lies and says it’s a medical device.

Schroeder and Carlson repeatedly referred to the recent shooting at Silver Rail Elementary in Bend, Oregon, which killed four people, including three children and a teacher. Carlson said more Kimberly staff members have expressed interest in carrying guns since then.

Carlson said many teachers are expected to enter a gunfight with a baseball bat or a golf club – or less. He’d rather have a gun.