The Salt Lake Tribune reports on gun-toting teacher Michelle Ferguson-Montgomery, who is taking the week off.
Although no other faculty or students witnessed the shooting, they might have heard the gunshot or seen the teacher as she was taken out of the school to the hospital, Horsley said.
Crisis counselors were available and a substitute was brought in for the teacher’s class, though Horsley declined to say which grade she teaches.
“Counselors will work with teachers on how to share this information with kids and how to answer questions,” the district said in its statement. “We encourage parents to have similar conversations with their child as appropriate. We will provide these resources as long as necessary.”
Westbrook Elementary school assures its parents that “Student safety is our primary concern”, which is of course why one of its 6th-grade teachers nailed her leg discharging a handgun in the toilet.
The firearm was owned and carried on-campus legally; educators are not even required to inform school administrators they are armed. The AP:
Horsley said Ferguson-Montgomery has been a teacher with the school for 14 years but he did not have her age. She was carrying her gun legally with a concealed-firearm permit, Horsley said.
Utah is among the few states that allow people with concealed-weapons permits to carry guns in public schools, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Teachers are not required to disclose that they are carrying a weapon, and administrators are prohibited from asking if they carry or barring them from bringing their weapons.
Educators have said they have no way of determining how many Utah teachers are armed, but gun-rights advocates estimated several years ago that 1 percent, or about 240 teachers in the state, are licensed to carry weapons.
Loaded, concealed firearms, in class, wielded by minimally–trained schoolteachers, and they don’t even have to tell anyone they’re packing. It’s just a matter of time.