After its town’s police department disbanded in 2014 and Oklahoma House Bill 2014 was passed in May 2015, the school board in one rural Oklahoma town approved a policy allowing staff members to carry a concealed firearm on campus. This week, there are signs that the administration is moving forward with the plans—four of them, in fact.
These notices, posted at schools in the Okay, Okla., district, read, “Please be aware that certain staff members at Okay Public Schools can be legally armed and may use whatever force is necessary to protect our students.” With one employee currently approved to carry, Okay is one of the first school systems in Oklahoma with such protections. “Hopefully [a school shooting] will never take place,” Superintendent Charles McMahan said. “But if it saves a life, it saves a life.”
Parent feedback has been mostly positive, but the most encouraging response has been from other superintendents—several of which have contacted McMahan for guidance on implementing similar policies in their own districts.
