Parents, Teachers Speak Out About Decision To Store Rifles At Fontana Schools

FONTANA (CBSLA.com) — Parents and teachers spoke out about the Fontana Unified School District Police Department's decision to store 14 high-powered semi-automatic rifles on campuses at a Wednesday school board meeting.

The AR-15 rifles, which were purchased last fall to protect students in the event of an attack, were delivered a week before the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre.

The weapons are being kept in a safe at an assigned school or secured in a patrol car.

Teacher Dee Dee Arganda said, "I'd rather be safe than sorry. If we didn't have the guns, what are we going to use? Slingshots?"

Dayle Jameson, an instructional aid, also supported the firearms on campus.

"I think they need a better way of executing it, but I'm all for it. Anything that protects our students, I'm always for," she said.

Child development specialist Anna Conklin said guns aren't the only way to deal with violence.

"I know the weapons are a big issue for people. But we need to address what's causing the need for the weapons," she said.

KCAL9's Juan Fernandez said school board members weren't officially allowed to discuss the issue of rifles on campuses because it was not scheduled on the agenda.

When board member Leticia Garcia tried to bring up the subject, she was asked to stop.

Garcia later told Fernandez, "We unfortunately do have children who come to school with sometimes plastic weapons or real weapons. Does that put them at risk…as our chief of police stated last night…to being neutralized and killed? I have a problem with that as a parent or grandparent because kids do things sometimes that are not okay."

The AR-15s will be on the agenda at a Feb. 6 school board meeting.

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