School districts in Texas that allow employees to carry firearms on campus are not violating state laws that right now ban concealed guns at sporting events or during school board meetings, according to an opinion released on Friday by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott.

The opinion isn’t likely to affect Ector County Independent School District as the ruling applies to what’s commonly known as “guardian plans” or how smaller, rural school districts that cannot afford a police force deal with safety precautions, according to the Austin-American Statesman.

Rep. Joe Pickett, D-El Paso asked Abbott for the opinion last year.

The Statesman reports that last year “Pickett asked Abbott to determine if guardian plans are affected by a state law that bans firearms and other weapons from school premises and in buildings where school-sponsored events are held.”

The law, according to the opinion, does ban those with concealed handgun licenses from bringing a weapon to a high school sporting event or school board meetings. However, in Abbott’s response released on Friday, he replied that state law does allow school districts to “grant written exceptions to the gun ban on school premises.”

The limits at sporting events or board meetings “are not violated when a person is lawfully carrying a handgun pursuant to a school board’s written regulations,” the opinion read.

Following the school shooting in Newtown, Conn. on Dec. 14, 2012, ECISD heightened its patrols on local campuses and reviewed its emergency and lock-down plans. Following the increased national discussion on gun control at schools, ECISD officials and some board trustees did not believe in arming teachers but agreed to leave law enforcement to its own police force.

More in the vein of Abbott’s opinion is Harrold ISD, a rural school district near Wichita Falls. In 2007, the school board for Harrold ISD approved its district to permit staff to carry a concealed handgun. It became the first school district in the United States to do so.

The superintendent of Harrold ISD, David Thweatt, said schools were failed by the government in 1990 when they became “gun-free zones.”

“Where else would you put a sign up and say here are our most unprotected and most precious,” Thweatt told the Odessa American.

OA reporter Lindsay Weaver contributed to this story