POCATELLO — School Resource Officers in the three high schools and middle schools in School District 25 will have semi-automatic police-issue rifles in locked safes in their offices, but arming teachers or other district employees will not happen.

    The school board voted 4-1 Wednesday night to pass a resolution supporting the gun safe policy for SROs. Trustee Paul Vitale was the only board member voting against the resolution.

    “I think it’s just too early,” Vitale said about setting a policy to bring rifles into schools on the heels of the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre in Newtown, Conn., less than two months ago.

    Part of the resolution reads: “Therefore be it resolved, that the board of trustees move to continue to support the Pocatello Police Department as it expands its practice of bringing weapons onto school grounds by expecting School Resource Officers to carry their service rifles onto school property on a daily basis and store them in locked safes.”

    The resolution as it pertains to arming school personnel states: “The board of trustees of the Pocatello/Chubbuck School District 25 has no intent to move in the direction of allowing school personnel to carry weapons onto school property.”

    Passage of the resolution took place following a public hearing attended by a handful of patrons and Pocatello Police Chief Scott Marchand.

    “This is not the first school district in the state to do this,” Marchand said about putting gun safes containing rifles at the disposal of SROs.

    “In my opinion this is the tool I would want to be armed with,” Marchand said about officers with semi-automatic rifles in the event of an armed intruder in the school. “I don’t want my guys to be out-gunned.”

    The police chief said he recently attended a statewide meeting of chiefs of police where school safety issues were on the front burner. Marchand is one of 10 members selected for a new chief of police group that is examining efforts to bolster school safety across the state.

    “You always try to prepare for the worst,” Marchand said. We’re looking ahead. I hope never to use the training or weapons in our schools.”

    During the public hearing on school safety, a letter of opposition to the gun safes from Pocatello resident Shane Reichert was read into the record.

    “Semi-automatic rifles and schools don’t mix,” Rickert wrote. “If this proposal is accepted there will be one semi-automatic rifle in schools.”

    Reichert said that Chief Marchand had failed to support the move to put rifles at the disposal of his SROs with any documented evidence it would diminish the chances for school violence. He asserted it only posed a hazard of having another weapon in the school.

    Marchand had assured the school board that the rifles would be locked in gun safes at all times and the offices of his SROs would be locked as well. The inside of the SRO offices will be under surveillance by video cameras and the rifles will go home with officers each day.

    Another Pocatello resident, Gary Wodek, appeared before the board and pushed for metal detectors in the schools. He said scanning student backpacks as they arrive in the building would be a “proactive approach” rather than reactive. Wodek said if guns or explosives are discovered before they enter the school, an attack has less chance of happening.

    Pocatello resident and former public relations employee for the Blackfoot School District, Susan Matsuura said she had reservations about upping the firepower in schools.

    Matsuura controlled her emotion as she shared with the board that her step-sister had been shot and killed in a murder 32 years ago and it haunted her for years. She said gun violence in America has escalated to unacceptable levels, but putting more weapons in schools is not the answer.

    “The last thing we need is a shootout in the OK Corral inside one of our schools,” Matsuura said.

    Pocatello teacher Jan Flandro expressed her support for the SRO program and counseling services in the district and said it unfortunate that both programs have suffered cuts. Flandro said she is concerned about elevating the level of anxiety for students when more weapons are inside schools.

    “I don’t want to increase their fears,” she said about students.

    A decision to allow rifles for SROs came following the hearing. One of the clauses in the resolution addressed the board’s regrets about the need for such action.

    “The board of trustees realizes that cultural conditions have changed in public schools in the past years and the need for increased purposeful vigilance with respect to school safety has intensified,” it states.