After the July 16 meeting when the Tamaqua Area School Board voted to rescind controversial Policy 705 (“the armed teacher” policy) upon the formal recommendation of the board’s security committee, board member Nicholas Boyle announced that the board would appoint a committee consisting of stakeholders who would participate in a discussion and presumably make recommendations regarding the contents of the new policy.

Unfortunately, there is no indication that the board will consider any of the many alternatives to arming teachers that have been proposed to the board since last fall, nor will it give the public a significant voice in a vital and controversial policy affecting the entire school community.

The necessity for a policy revision is an opportunity to start at the beginning, where the board should have started last year prior to drafting the policy: by consulting experts, data, research and resources on gun violence prevention, which would include best practice recommendations on how to stop an active shooter.

I recently became aware of a free online course, “Reducing Gun Violence in America: Evidence for Change,” designed and taught by professors from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. It includes such topics as rights under the Second Amendment, gun storage practices, relevant legal issues, evidence­ based policies to prevent gun violence, and guns in public places, schools and homes.

One of the designers and teachers of the course, Professor Daniel Webster of JHU’s Center for Gun Policy and Research, has agreed to moderate group discussions online for any interested parties in our community. I am not suggesting that we turn over responsibility for drafting the security policy to anyone outside of the district. I am suggesting that those who are charged with protecting our schools take advantage of this opportunity to learn from the research that is available so the district has a well-informed, comprehensive policy going forward.

This would be a small investment of time and effort to learn how to best protect our students, faculty and staff. None of us, including myself and other advocates of alternative policies, should rely merely on our intuitions and biases.

Mr. Wittig, Mr. Boyle, Board Members: What do you say?

Cheryl Tennant Humes

Tamaqua

(Editor’s note: Cheryl Humes is running for a seat on the Tamaqua Area School Board)