TORIN HALSEY/TIMES RECORD NEWS Harrold ISD Superintendent David Thweatt, the son of a preacher-turned-educator, is no stranger to controversy. His school district became the first to allow teachers to arm themselves. The school's Guardian Plan was implemented soon after the Virginia Tech shootings. Now the district is part of a lawsuit against the federal government. The Harrold ISD passed a bathroom policy May 23 that mandates students use the bathroom that corresponds to their gender at birth, which opposes the federal government's directive to allow students to use the bathroom that corresponds to their gender identity. TORIN HALSEY/TIMES RECORD NEWS Harrold ISD Superintendent David Thweatt, the son of a preacher-turned-educator, is no stranger to controversy. His school district became the first to allow teachers to arm themselves. The school's Guardian Plan was implemented soon after the Virginia Tech shootings. Now the district is part of a lawsuit against the federal government. The Harrold ISD passed a bathroom policy May 23 that mandates students use the bathroom that corresponds to their gender at birth, which opposes the federal government's directive to allow students to use the bathroom that corresponds to their gender identity.

By Lana Sweeten-Shults of the Times Record News

HARROLD, Texas — David Thweatt talks about his 45-second commute to work.

He gabbles about his family's chickens and just how striking the stars look at night when you live in the country.

"It's the quality of life," said Thweatt, the son of a preacher-turned-educator and superintendent of the tiny Harrold ISD, a rural school whose sturdy red brick building rises from the prairie, in the shadow of pump jacks and the sprawling Waggoner Ranch.

Thweatt grew up in Abilene. He spent nine years as a speech and debate teacher in San Marcos and lived in Austin for a year, straying from education to take a job testing lead-based paint.

But mostly, he has lived and taught in small-town Texas: Miami, Bowie, Perryton, Harrold.

He is enamored by the Norman Rockwellian, idyllic quality of small towns. He speaks of them eloquently.

He speaks of them with as much passion as he does about controversial topics.

"I don't believe in the term transgender," he said in the same conversation about small-town life.

It's a term that has thrown this quiet community onto the national stage and under the scrutiny of those who oppose the district's conservative stance, as it finds itself at the center of a landmark lawsuit against the federal government over transgender civil rights.

Surprisingly, it is not the first time the district has found itself mired in controversy. It is not the first time it has taken a stand against the tide of national opinion.

The gun issue

Thweatt jokes how, when national media outlets call him, he tells them, "Oh, you're calling me to ask about our innovative music program."

But, of course, they're not.

"They want to talk about guns," he said.

It was in 2007 that Thweatt started the process of arming teachers.

The year before, on Oct. 7, 2006, Charlie Roberts, a milk truck driver, entered a one-room Amish schoolhouse on the farmlands of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Armed with a gun, he killed 10 Amish girls ages 6-13.

When Thweatt thinks of that small Amish schoolhouse, he sees the Harrold ISD and its 100 kindergarten through 12th-grade students.

The red brick school building, its front door flanked by stone eagles, stands alone, just off a busy U.S. 287, between Wichita Falls and Vernon. A few houses quietly sit behind it.

"We would have let him in," he said of the milkman.

Soon after, in April 2007, senior Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people in two attacks on the Virginia Tech campus in what would become the deadliest shooting rampage in American history by a single gunman.

"Virginia Tech, their safety plan is everybody's safety plan — lock the doors and hope for the best."

It not a good plan, he said: "When they made schools gun-free zones, I thought it was the stupidest idea ever."

Thweatt implemented the Guardian Plan in October 2007. He would have done it earlier except the school's insurance plan dragged its feet, he said, and school board members were reluctant at first.

"Some didn't want to be the poster child of CNN," he said. "Then Virginia Tech happened."

It was almost a year before the media picked up on what Harrold was doing.

"We sat under the radar for a while."

Thweatt remembers one headline, "Reading, Writing and Revolvers."

"It was interesting, the criticism. They said I did it to thumb my nose at Obama, but we passed this in 2007. We didn't even know him (Obama) yet. People said we were paranoid and overreacting."

Thweatt seeks out his school's "Guardians." With just 24 teachers — and no security guard or budget for one — he knows which ones feel comfortable handling guns.

Guardians must have a gun license, be approved by the board and go through extensive training. He says his Guardians are trained on guns more than the police.

And he won't say which of his teachers are armed.

"It's anywhere from one to 24," he said with a smile, adding how "anonymity is key in this plan."

Thweatt has spoken extensively to other schools about Harrold ISD's Guardian Plan. Once the lone district to do so, now around 110 of Texas' 1,000-plus school districts have implemented similar plans, according to the Texas Association of School Boards.

Thirty minutes from the nearest sheriff's office, Thweatt said the school must act as its own first responder. If a gunman enters the front door — the limited-entry building is protected by magnetic doors — teachers have minutes to try to prevent tragedies that have happened at so many other campuses.

"Rural America is not Mayberry anymore," he said.

Transgender lawsuit

Thweatt is conservative.

He is opinionated and outspoken.

He believes in common sense.

The son of parents who grew up in World War II, he did not expect to be coddled or congratulated for taking care of his responsibilities.

He thinks giving children participation awards is ridiculous and that telling children, "Aw, it's nobody's fault … is a very, very dangerous philosophy."

That's how he runs his school.

With 40 cameras installed around the school (plans are to install 20 more), schoolchildren will find it hard to get away with anything; visitors will find it hard not to be seen.

In Thweatt's office, one filled with antique clocks from his travels around the world, he is able to monitor what the security cameras see.

The transgender rights issue is something he considers as yet another threat to his students' security, so when the Obama administration sent its guidelines to public schools May 13, directing them to allow students to use the bathroom that corresponds to their gender identity, he knew what stance he wanted to take. After being approached by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's office — a few days after the Wichita Falls ISD voted not to adopt a transgender bathroom policy — the Harrold ISD school board on May 23 unanimously voted to pass a bathroom policy that mandated students use the bathroom that corresponds to their gender at birth.

The move defied the federal government's guidelines.

Two days later, Texas joined 10 other states in suing the federal government, filing the paperwork at the federal courthouse in Wichita Falls.

Texas said it was protecting the Harrold ISD from any repercussions, including losing federal funding for not following Title IX, the federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any federally funded education program or activity.

Thweatt argues the federal government, in including transgenders, is rewriting Title IX and that it is overstepping its authority.

"I don't believe in the term transgender," Thweatt said. "If people can't decide what gender they are, they have to explore that on their own."

Opponents of Obama's directive say they worry about sexual assaults or violence that might occur because of the directive. They worry about someone saying they're transgender when they're not so they can have access to a place they shouldn't be.

Thweatt said children are "at a tender age" and are trying to find themselves.

"They don't need to be forced into a situation ...," Thweatt said. "This is just illogical. It doesn't work."

Of the 100 or so students who attend the Harrold ISD, most are there because their parents have chosen for their children to be there. Only about 10 live in the district. The rest transfer in from towns like Electra and Vernon, walking the hallways filled with posters of classic cars, WW II battleships, submarines, snakes, the skeletal system.

Thweatt speaks about those students "doing everything," from six-man football to volleyball and basketball. Then there's the district's jazz band program, initiated in 2006.

When someone plays an instrument, their brain just lights up: "Music and learning music is to the brain what a weight room is to jogging and athletics. It's a workout."

But of course, everyone still just wants to talk about guns and, now, the transgender bathroom issue.

Thweatt says whatever the issue might be, whether it's guns, bathrooms or his innovative music program: "We're going to look out for our kids."