Court: Tamaqua teachers have standing in arms suit

The union representing teachers in the Tamaqua Area School District has standing to bring a lawsuit against the district over the implementation of a policy allowing employees to carry firearms in school.

Schuylkill County Judge Jacqueline L. Russell handed down the ruling Monday, overruling preliminary objections by the district to an amended complaint filed by teachers earlier this year.

In objecting to the teachers’ union standing, the district argued that only if a person was injured or killed by the discharge of a firearm by a district employee would the victim have standing.

“A fair reading of the amended complaint,” Russell wrote in her opinion, “supports a determination that the (Tamaqua Area Education Association) has standing to pursue this action and that one need not wait for an injury or death to occur to find that an aggrieved person exists necessary to find standing to question the legality of the district’s policy. In particular, it is found that the association has alleged its members have a substantial, direct and immediate interest in the outcome of this action.”

Steve Cholish, PSEA UniServ Representative for the Tamaqua Area Education Association, said the union is pleased with the outcome.

“The court has rejected the district’s attempt to derail this lawsuit,” he said. “The best option now is for the school board to drop this illegal policy and save everyone a lot of time and money.”

School board members agreed in January to temporarily suspend the implementation of the controversial policy, No. 705, following the filing of two legal challenges, one by the union and another by a group of Tamaqua parents. The board, however, revived the plan in April, saying appeals of the court cases could last for years, and the district is ready to move forward.

The initial complaint by the union was filed in November 2018, but was dismissed by Russell when she ruled that the association needed to allege additional facts related to standing and gave it 20 days to file an amended complaint, which it did.

Russell said the union must allege that at least one of its members is aggrieved by the defendant’s policy in that he/she has suffered or will suffer direct, immediate and substantial injury to his/her interest as a result of the action of the defendant.

“Unlike the original complaint,” Russell wrote Monday, “which failed to identify the party who verified it, the amended complaint is verified by Frank Wenzel, who is identified as the president of the association.”

Now, after Monday’s ruling, the district has 20 days to answer the union’s amended complaint.

“As teachers, counselors, and other educational professionals, we are trained to educate our students, not to carry or use firearms in a dangerous situation,” Wenzel said.

Teachers sought an injunction to halt implementation of the policy.

“Whether relief in the nature of a final injunction should be granted is a determination properly rendered at the relevant time in the judicial proceedings,” Russell said.

Any declaratory judgment, she added, would come when the case’s record was “more fully developed.”

The union argues the policy goes beyond the authority granted to the district by the Pennsylvania legislature and would result in an unsafe work environment.

Employees would be trained pursuant to the Lethal Weapons Training Act, it argues, which only requires 40 hours of training, 14 of which are dedicated to firearms training and four of which are dedicated to nonlethal techniques training. By comparison, municipal police officers receive 919 hours of training, 124 of which are devoted to firearms training, 66 of which are for nonlethal techniques and 40 of which involve scenario-based training.

The district said carrying a firearm would be voluntary and not an incidence of their employment, which would require the same training as police officers.

It also contends that although no specific state statute authorizes the district to enact its policy, none prevents it from doing so.