School officials in Big Lake, Minn., changed course Thursday and decided that guns can be included in the high school trapshooting team's photo in the yearbook.
The about-face came one day after the team's coach, Rhonda Eckerdt, said she learned from the athletic director that the photo was banned from the yearbook because the students were holding their shotguns, which violated district policy against firearms in school photos.
Eckerdt said the team was offered to have a photo in the yearbook but without its guns.
In the wake of the dispute, district administration "accepted a request [Thursday] morning to change a handbook policy concerning the display of guns in yearbook photos," Superintendent Steve Westerberg said in a statement.
The policy now includes an exception specifically for the trapshooting team.
"It is important to remember that a school district has rules and procedures that need to be followed," Westerberg added.
He then went on to lament the "intense conversation around this topic on social media and the phone calls and e-mails we received" because they "only delayed the process."
Westerberg said this dispute over the team's yearbook photo had come up before. Last year the team "chose not to" submit a photo without the firearms being included, he said.
