Tamaqua Area School District officials say they have revived a shelved policy which would train teachers to carry guns in school.

School board members agreed in January to temporarily suspend the implementation of the controversial policy, No. 705, following the filing of two legal challenges.

Litigation is pending in Schuylkill County Common Pleas Court, with cases brought separately by the teachers’ union and a group of parents.

At a school board meeting on Tuesday, a parent asked board President Larry Wittig if another policy was in place while 705 was suspended. Wittig responded that the policy’s suspension ended with the cases being dismissed.

“We suspended it pending the outcome of the litigation — considering both lawsuits were thrown out, we don’t consider it suspended anymore,” he said.

The parent, Cheryl Tennant Humes, asked if the parents and teachers had appealed their lawsuits to the next level of jurisdiction, the Pennsylvania Superior Court.

Wittig said he wasn’t aware whether they had appealed the cases or not, but said that didn’t affect the board suspending the policy.

Wittig said appeals could last for years, and the district is ready to move forward. Humes said she thought the board suspended the policy pending the outcome of the entire litigation, including appeals.

When he proposed suspending the policy in January, Wittig said it was “pending the outcome of the court decision,” not specifying which court.

That prompted parent Tracy Perry to say that she would not be comfortable with a teacher carrying a gun, but she would be comfortable with a full-time officer.

“If a parent doesn’t know that their child is in a room with a loaded weapon, they cannot ask that their child not be in a room with a loaded weapon,” Perry said.

She said that there are retired state troopers and other qualified people who are willing to work as a school resource officer and the district should use them.

Parent Joseph Carney expressed concern that some of the training the school has given students to handle an active shooter situation could create confusion if there is an armed teacher. He said his fifth-grade son told him that he learned during the recent ALICE training that if there is a person with a gun in his school, he should find nearby objects and throw it at them.

“Certain kids feel that way, other kids know it’s situational. I’m not comfortable with the idea that there are 25 kids in a classroom all getting different interpretations from teachers,” Carney said.

Following Tuesday’s meeting, School board member Nick Boyle said following the meeting that he agrees with Wittig that the school board can’t wait for appeal after appeal to delay implementation of policy 705.

“We can’t sit here and wait years down the road until we do something. Eventually we have to go with it. And if we get challenged and they win, then we have to appeal that appeal,” Boyle said.