Officials in rural states like South Dakota and Wyoming told President Donald Trump’s school safety commission on Tuesday that few school districts have taken advantage of state laws there to train and arm teachers.
The lack of participation comes despite a ringing endorsement from the president, who touted the idea of arming trained school staff after the shooting in Parkland, Fla., earlier this year that left 17 people dead.
South Dakota passed a law in 2013 creating the “School Sentinel“ program, becoming one of the first states with legislation explicitly allowing staff to carry guns in public schools in districts that choose to adopt the program. Teachers who want to become sentinels must go through 80 hours of training.
"We always thought — and the argument in the Legislature was — that it would be for those most rural schools, where law enforcement was an hour, half-hour away,” said Mike Milstead, sheriff of Minnehaha County in South Dakota.
As it turns out, one of the only sentinels in the state is stationed at a school in his county that already has a school resource officer, Milstead said.
