Ankeny teachers will not be allowed to carry guns despite new Iowa law

Teachers will not be allowed to carry guns in Ankeny schools.

The Ankeny school board on Monday unanimously approved a plan for how the district will respond to House File 2586, a new law Gov. Kim Reynolds signed in April that allows school employees to get a professional permit to carry weapons.

The law does let individual school districts decide whether to allow employees to carry firearms. Des Moines Public Schools and several suburban districts already have announced that they have no plans to arm staff.

Ankeny joined them on Monday.

More: Gov. Kim Reynolds signs bill letting school staff obtain permit to carry guns at school

Before the new bill, Iowa law already allowed school employees to carry guns, but two northwest Iowa school districts faced losing their insurance coverage when they tried to move forward with the idea. The new law adds professional permitting and grants qualified immunity as protection from criminal or civil liability for use of reasonable force, which supporters said could help ease insurance issues.

But insurance agency representatives told the Ankeny school board at an earlier meeting that allowing staff to carry weapons would still threaten the district's current insurance coverage, and finding an alternative could be cost-prohibitive.

Will Ankeny provide school resource officers in its buildings?

The law also requires school districts with more than 8,000 students to have a school resource officer or private security officer at attendance centers for grades 9 through 12 — unless a school board votes not to. In Ankeny, that's Ankeny High School, Ankeny Centennial High School, Northview Middle School and Southview Middle School.

The Ankeny plan approved Monday will maintain two school resource officers from the Ankeny Police Department in the two high schools.

The plan calls for a third resource officer from the police department for either Northview and Southview, which has 8th and 9th graders. Its appointment would be subject to an agreement with the police department. The district also will explore hiring a security officer from a private company for the remaining middle school.

The district will not be required to have an officer in the 8th- and 9th-grade schools if "the provision of such services cannot be achieved in a high-quality, financially-sustainable manner," according to the plan.

Superintendent Erick Pruitt said the goal is to have the third school resource officer in place in early 2025 while the district works to get quotes from private companies for the remaining building.

The plan also says the district will look into private security services for other district buildings where there are students in grades 9 through 12, such as Orbis, a work-based learning program. The district's unarmed safety staff do not qualify because they are employees of the district.

Republican legislators who supported the law have said it could also improve safety in schools, in light of the fatal school shooting in Perry in January, while Democratic legislators who were opposed said the law could actually make schools less safe.

Chris Higgins covers the eastern and northern suburbs for the Register. Reach him at chiggins@registermedia.com or 515-423-5146 and follow him on Twitter @chris_higgins_

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Ankeny school board votes against arming teachers in schools