LAS VEGAS (AP) - The Clark County school board rejected a measure that would have allowed the largest school district in Nevada to send information to parents about safe gun storage.
The board on Thursday voted 4-3 against requiring parents and guardians in the Clark County School District to sign a document acknowledging firearms at home are secured, the Las Vegas Sun reported. The document would have been distributed with registration materials.
Board members Lola Brooks, Irene Cepeda, Evelyn Garcia Morales and Katie Williams opposed the resolution. School board president Linda Cavazos, who introduced the measure, and board members Danielle Ford and Lisa Guzman voted for it.
Cavazos said that if the district can send home paperwork warning parents about peanut allergies, it also should be able to distribute documents informing parents about state gun laws.
The resolution was considered partly because of an increase in suicides across Clark County, which includes Las Vegas, and in the school district during the coronavirus pandemic, Cavazos said. A county coroner’s report recorded 96 suicides in people 18 or younger from 2016 to 2020, Cavazos said.
“While I’m not opposed to sending out informational letters home to parents, I am opposed to requiring it with registration,” Williams said, adding that if the district is going to advise parents about guns, it might as well warn them to hide things like prescription drugs as well.
Rebecca Garcia, head of the Nevada Parent and Teachers Association, said the group opposed parents having to sign an acknowledgment form about gun safety awareness during registration.
Parent Andy McDonald wrote to the board that it was not the district’s place to determine how he should store his firearm or who in his home has access.
“It is my job as a parent to teach my child firearm safety and how and when to properly handle the firearms in my home. I want CCSD to keep doing what is their job and that is to educate my child, not drive an agenda,” McDonald wrote.
Kelly Grimm, a parent of two high school students, said she supported the proposal.
“This resolution will allow all CCSD parents, gun owners and non-gun owners alike to learn about the tragedy of preventable child gun deaths,” Grimm said.
The board voted to revisit the measure in June.
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