Park City School District offers firearm safety education for students

PARK CITY, Utah (ABC4) — Utah students will be required to learn about firearm safety due to a new state law, and Park City is getting an early start.

Under House Bill 104, all Utah school districts will be required to provide firearm safety education at least once a year for elementary students and at least once for middle and high schoolers.

Park City is starting early and will be providing a 20-minute gun safety lesson for their third through fifth graders starting this December. These lessons will take place at all four of Park City’s elementary schools.

“I think it’s good for any student, gun safety in general, especially here in Utah where a lot of families have a gun, where they know not to touch it or just educating [them] with the basics of it,” said Colton Elliot, with the Park City School District.

Reportedly, Park City School District has not had any incidents with real guns, but they have had false alarms and hope to stay prepared, in the case of an incident.

Elliot says the lessons will be taught by counselors and school resource officers and will include a short video, worksheet, and question box. The lessons emphasize a simple message: stop, leave, and tell an adult.

“The law is vague on how to interpret it and we’re doing the best we can working with our school resource officers to build this curriculum,” Elliot said, “They put together a good lesson plan to make sure we’re complying with state law.”

Additionally, parents will be informed before each lesson and must sign a permission slip for their students to participate, with alternate activities for those who opted out. Elliot says, “If the parents don’t sign it, then they are not required to take the course.”

For Meghan Miller Gatlan, a parent in the school district, this new program has helped ease some of her worries about school safety.

“I’ve seen the trainings and material and [they] are kid appropriate and I’m in favor of anything common sense. I appreciate the district giving me the option to opt in or opt out,” She said.

While the focus is on school safety, families are invited to attend the gun safety sessions with their students.

ABC4 also reached out to the Utah Board of Education, who stated that they don’t know of any other school districts already taking the initiative for firearm safety.