The decision by a rural, one-school Texas district to allow employees to carry concealed handguns has reopened a heated debate about the appropriateness of guns on school campuses--and it has some school safety experts scratching their heads.

In an effort to keep students safe, trustees of the Harrold Independent School District adopted a policy last October that allows some employees to carry a concealed handgun. Harrold Superintendent David Thweatt said the policy went into effect at the time of adoption and offered no further comment about the implementation process.

According to the policy, Harrold school employees must be licensed by the state to carry a gun, must undergo additional training in crisis management and hostile situations, and can only use ammunition that is designed to minimize ricochets.

The district, which consists of one K-12 school and about 100 students, is nearly 30 minutes from local police and is about 500 feet from a busy highway, making the school more vulnerable to violence, Thweatt said .

"We had to ask the question: What are we going to do if we have an active shooter in the building?" he said.

Thweatt said he and the trustees decided it was in students' best interest to provide an available line of defense if there is a shooter on school grounds--be it an outsider, a hostage situation, or even an armed student.

"We should be, as a society, ready to defend ourselves," he said.

Some school safety officials aren't convinced that letting teachers carry guns will keep students safe.