The Na­tion­al Coun­cil of Par­ent Teacher As­so­ci­a­tions (NPTA) has re­versed its po­si­tion on as­sign­ing po­lice of­fi­cers with guns in the na­tion’s schools.

Speak­ing on CNC3's The Morn­ing Brew show to­day, NPTA pres­i­dent Wal­ter Stew­art said the change of heart came af­ter a re­cent fight be­tween a teacher and a stu­dent at Ari­ma North Sec­ondary School.

It was on­ly two weeks ago that Stew­art had ob­ject­ed to the idea of armed po­lice of­fi­cers be­ing sta­tioned in schools.

Now he says their pres­ence is nec­es­sary, even if they do not en­gage with row­dy stu­dents.

“Our ini­tial re­ac­tion to that was ‘No way!’ We want­ed to have po­lice of­fi­cers at the schools, cer­tain­ly, but un­armed,” he re­called.

He ad­mit­ted that think­ing has since changed.

“A re­view of the process in­di­cat­ing that if any­thing is to hap­pen, God for­bid,” he said, “that the of­fi­cers, in or­der to be able to re­spond rapid­ly to the sit­u­a­tion, there would be a need for armed po­lice of­fi­cers in des­ig­nat­ed spe­cif­ic schools. So we have gone along with that think­ing … that phi­los­o­phy.”

Stew­art al­so agreed with Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ju­nior Ben­jamin, who heads up the Schools-ori­ent­ed Po­lice Unit, that of­fi­cers must con­duct them­selves pro­fes­sion­al­ly at schools.

To pre­vent fa­mil­iar­i­ty de­vel­op­ing be­tween of­fi­cers and stu­dents, he sug­gest­ed ro­tat­ing them among the 50 sec­ondary schools to which they are as­signed.