Tamaqua rescinds controversial gun policy

The Tamaqua Area School District announced Tuesday evening that a controversial gun policy to arm staff has been rescinded at its school board meeting.

“I’m responding based on legislators that I talked to about the intent of the law,” said school board president Larry Wittig.

“The intent of the law is not to prevent teachers from carrying. Our specific policy is blown away because of the legislation; because of the way it was crafted.”

“We will at some point be working on something that will comply with the law as it’s presently written. I just want to stress that the law does not, contrary to what the governor may have said, does not specifically preclude a staff member from going through the training and carrying.”

Wittig said he doesn’t know what direction the board will go now that Policy 705 has been rescinded.

“We’re certainly going to be within the law,” Wittig said.

“The utmost importance here is the legitimate safety of the students, not a cosmetic safety of the students. Not something that makes adults feel good about it. To that extent, we’ll be working very hard to make sure our solicitor agrees with the direction we’re going and we’re taking guidance from him and a lot of other input as well.”