Some school districts allow employees to carry guns. California says they need to stop

For years, Folsom and Rancho Cordova schools have allowed some employees to carry guns on campus because district leaders believed their students were safer that way.

Come Jan. 1, those guns have to stay elsewhere.

Gov. Jerry Brown on Saturday signed legislation preventing school districts from allowing non-security employees to carry guns on campus. Folsom Cordova Unified is the only large district in the Sacramento region that has allowed people with concealed weapons permits to be armed, along with a handful of districts around California that include Kingsburg Joint Union High School District in Fresno County.

Folsom Cordova, which has 20,000 students, has allowed firearms on campus since 2010 with special permission from the superintendent. Teachers and bus drivers have not been allowed to have guns.

“This legislation ends our years-long practice of allowing trained, select employees with valid concealed weapons permits to safely store and, if necessary, access a firearm on school grounds,” Superintendent Sarah Koligan said in a prepared statement. Koligan became superintendent at the beginning of the school year.