“It is my duty and responsibility as the principal of this school to ensure the safety and security of all of our faculty, staff and students.” That’s McBean Elementary’s principal, Dr. Janina Dallas, explaining why she blackballed Tanya Mount from the Hephzibah, Georgia, school property. The exclusionary offense: Mount posted a photo (now apparently removed) of her Peach State concealed carry permit on her Facebat page. Something Dr. Dallas says she took as evidence of a threat. Now before you run out to the garage to dig out your pitchfork and spark up a torch, there may be more to this story than is laid out in the wjbf.com report . . .
Principal Dallas says several PTO members pointed out instances where Mount would disrupt classes and where Mount said she wouldn’t let anybody bother her daughter
The principal says with the rash of school shootings, coupled with Mount’s comments and the permit, it was cause for alarm.
She adds “there have been a number of school shootings in our country. And inevitably, people will say they saw signs and things of that nature after the fact.”
So…a dash of hoplophobia? Most likely. Could Ms. Mount’s active parenting style have contributed to the adverse outcome of this little drama? That may very well be, too.
But above all, Principal Dallas doesn’t want to be the one standing in front of a forest of microphones with the thousand-yard stare after something unimaginably bad happens, explaining why she didn’t ‘do something’ when all the now-clear-in-hindsight signs presented themselves. So given the alternatives as she saw them — explaining herself to the local news vs. justifying her failure to act against a known gun toter — a government school administrator’s path of least resistance is pretty clear.
Ms. Mount has since transferred her wee bairn to another institution of higher learning where, if you go by the news report, the principal is less concerned about parents who are licensed to pack heat. But in a generally gun-friendly state, the heat on Dr. Dallas may just be getting dialed up.
[h/t Adam G.]