By KATY SAVAGE
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ROCKINGHAM and WESTMINSTER, Vt. — Rockingham and Westminster school boards submitted letters to legislators this past week urging them to pass common sense gun laws in the wake of parent, student and staff concern over school violence.
Board members said they need government support stop gun violence in schools.
“Students and teachers spend more time participating in lockdown drills that they could otherwise spend learning and it is provoking anxiety and fear in children, staff, and parents,” the letter reads. “And yet as the recent tragedies have shown us, even these measures are not enough to prevent someone with a firearm from coming in and killing students and teachers.”
The letters, addressed to Gov. Phil Scott, House Speaker Mitzi Johnson, D-South Hero and Senate President Pro Tem Tim Ashe, D/P-Chittenden, were sent just after the Vermont House gave final approval to legislation that would raise the legal age to buy firearms to 21, expand universal background checks and ban bump stocks. The Senate also gave initial approval to the measures. A final version of a bill will need to be reconciled and approved before becoming law.
Windham Northeast Supervisory Union Superintendent Chris Kibbe said he’s concerned about school safety every day.
“Some of these folks concerned about their gun rights might want to put themselves in my shoes,” said Kibbe, a gun owner and hunter. “When you’re the person who wakes up in the middle of the night and you’re worried about hundreds of children – that’s me.”
The Rockingham and Westminster school boards borrowed wording from a letter the school board in Brattleboro submitted to legislators.
Windham Southeast Supervisory Union chair Jill Tyler said board members have a duty to ensure school safety.
“Schools should be a place where they can come to learn and not worry about, ‘am I going to feel safe here?’” Tyler said.
Rockingham School Board chair Rick Holloway said he’s heard from concerned parents.
“They want to know what we’re doing…and how we’re going to keep the kids safe,” he said.
School board members hope the letters are a start to preventing gun violence.
“Obviously it’s a concern and we’re all responsible for kids’ safety,” said Kibbe. “It’s a topic that’s on all of our minds.”
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