California cracks down on school employees carrying guns on campus

SACRAMENTO — For years, Folsom and Rancho Cordova schools have allowed some employees to carry guns on campus because district leaders believed their students were safer that way.

Come Jan. 1, those guns have to stay elsewhere.

Gov. Jerry Brown on Saturday signed legislation preventing school districts from allowing non-security employees to carry guns on campus. Folsom Cordova Unified is the only large district in the Sacramento region that has allowed people with concealed weapons permits to be armed, along with a handful of districts around California that include Kingsburg Joint Union High School District in Fresno County.

Folsom Cordova, which has 20,000 students, has allowed firearms on campus since 2010 with special permission from the superintendent. Teachers and bus drivers have not been allowed to have guns.

“This legislation ends our years-long practice of allowing trained, select employees with valid concealed weapons permits to safely store and, if necessary, access a firearm on school grounds,” Superintendent Sarah Koligan said in a prepared statement. Koligan became superintendent at the beginning of the school year.

The district would not reveal how many firearms are currently on campus at the advice of law enforcement. Not every school has an armed employee on campus, said district spokesman Daniel Thigpen.

Kingsburg Joint Union High School voted to allow teachers to carry guns on campus last year. They are allowed to carry a concealed firearm in a holster worn inside the pants, around the chest, on the front hip, at the ankle or behind the back.

Assemblyman Kevin McCarty, D-Sacramento, has argued that schools would be safer without concealed weapons on campus. He was a co-author of Assembly Bill 424.

“A safe learning environment is essential for our children to be successful in the classroom,” McCarty said in a statement after the Assembly passed the bill in May. “That’s not possible if a school district allows armed civilians to roam California school campuses.”

The bill was backed by the state’s two major teachers unions, the California State PTA and gun control advocates. Opponents included the National Rifle Association and other gun rights organizations.