Senators Seek to Re-Fund Safety Classes in Schools

By Jennifer Williams

A Democratic Senator from Montana seeks to stop what he calls a misinterpretation of last year’s Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA).

“The Biden Administration has this one flat-out wrong – school hunting and shooting sports education classes are part of our Montana way of life and need to be fully funded,” said Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont. “That’s why I’m working with Republicans and Democrats to stand up against D.C. bureaucrats who don’t understand rural America, and I’ll continue to beat the drum until our bipartisan bill gets across the finish line so that our students have access to these critical safety courses.” 

The BSCA, which Congress passed and President Joe Biden signed into law last year after highly publicized mass shootings, was designed to promote "safer, more inclusive and positive" school environments. It included an amendment to an Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965 subsection listing prohibited uses for federal school funding. That amendment prohibits ESEA funds from helping provide any person with a dangerous weapon or to provide "training in the use of a dangerous weapon."

The Education Department then stopped federal finding for shooting sport and hunter education activities in schools across the nation, citing the BSCA. Tester and other congressmen expressed concerns over the interpretation.

Last week, Tester, a third-generation Montana farmer and former teacher, introduced the Defending Hunters Education Act as an amendment to a key Senate spending package. Tester’s bipartisan legislation would force the Biden Administration to reverse course on their decision to prohibit the use of federal funds for school archery and hunting education classes.

U.S. Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Susan Collins (R-Maine), and Bob Casey (D-Pa.) are co-sponsoring the legislation, making Tester’s bill the only bipartisan legislation in the U.S. Senate that seeks to address the Biden Administration’s decision to strip funding from these longstanding safety classes. His bipartisan legislation would require the Department of Education to restore school districts’ ability to use federal resources for school archery, gun safety, and hunter education programs.

"By misinterpreting which activities are now supported by ESEA, the Department of Education is limiting learning opportunities critical to student safety," Tester said in a letter he sent to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona. "I urge the Department of Education to reconsider the interpretation of BSCA in a way that does not limit learning opportunities for students and does not present barriers to critical hunter safety courses."

Three of the four BSCA sponsors — Sens. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz.; John Cornyn, R-Texas; and Thom Tillis, R-N.C. — have expressed concern about the Department of Education's interpretation of the BSCA provision and West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin vocally challenged the decision.

"Any defunding of schools who offer critical programs like archery and hunting clubs would be a gross misinterpretation of the legislation and yet another example of this administration trying to advance their radical agenda with blatant disregard for the law," Manchin told Fox News Digital.

Tester says that the actions by the Department of Education actually limit “learning opportunities critical to student safety.”

"I urge the Department of Education to reconsider the interpretation of BSCA in a way that does not limit learning opportunities for students and does not present barriers to critical hunter safety courses,” he wrote in his letter to Cardona.

“Let me be clear,” says Tester on his website, “I think that’s a poor decision that will hurt thousands of students who benefit from these resources every year.”

“The bottom line is that anyone who has ever lived in rural America would know that shooting sports and hunting are simply part of our Montana way of life,” he continues. “Efforts to strip these school safety courses are just the latest example of folks in Washington not understanding our rural communities, and I’ll do everything in my power to stop them in their tracks.”