CLEVELAND, Ohio – School districts across Northeast Ohio do not want their teachers carrying guns into classrooms this fall, despite a new law that eases the requirements for arming educators.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed House Bill 99 into law in June, giving school boards the authority to allow teachers and other staff members to carry guns in schools after performing 24 hours of training. The amount of training previously had been set at 700 hours.
The law highlights the mounting tensions brought on by school shootings across the country and the response to them by Ohio lawmakers. Guns rights advocates say arming teachers provides the best way to stop a deadly attack. But school officials say such a move, with staffers who have limited training, can make a disastrous situation worse.
The training would be run through the Ohio School Safety Center, which assists law enforcement and school personnel in responding to threats and violence. School districts must notify the center if they permit teachers and staff members to carry weapons.
It is too early in the process for school districts to request training from the safety center, said Jay Carey, a spokesman for the Ohio Department of Public Safety.
“Schools are only required to notify the Ohio School Safety Center if they choose to arm a staff member because they must ensure that the staff member receives state training or state-approved training,” he said in an email. “Training requirements are still being developed, and, therefore, training requests are not yet being accepted.”
But school districts across Northeast Ohio told cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer that they will refuse the option in the law.
Officials in Cleveland, Akron, Medina, Shaker Heights and Lakewood say they are shunning the option to arm school personnel.
Officials at Cleveland Heights-University Heights City School District said that they are not denying that school violence is a problem in the country, but the answer is not arming employees, said Cathan Cavanaugh, a spokesperson for the district.
The board of education on June 7 passed a resolution opposing the state law. The board and teachers’ union agreed that giving staff members weapons would not make them or students feel any safer. Rather, it would endanger them more. Rocky River and Lorain schools also have declined to allow teachers to carry weapons.
In its resolution, Cleveland’s school board made clear that it would not permit teachers to carry guns in its 68 schools. It cited the reduction of training hours.
In its resolution, the board said, “the presence of undertrained or improperly trained persons armed with firearms in our schools would create a dangerous environment and threaten the lives and safety of students and staff.”
Dean Rieck, the executive director of Buckeye Firearms Association based in Westerville, said the group has always supported the concept of allowing school administrators, teachers and staff to carry guns.
“In the end what the data really shows is that it’s all about time. Time’s the only thing that matters,” he said. “When [shooters] enter a school and they start shooting people, you have to stop them.
“And every second that goes by means more people are dead. So even if police are fairly close by, it still takes them time to get there, to orient themselves to the situation and do something.”
If school personnel already are armed, the situation can be dealt with immediately, Rieck said.
The Ohio Education Association is the state’s largest union representing teachers and school personnel. It has fought the new law, but it has stressed that it is not surprised by DeWine’s decision to sign the bill “given his track record of bowing down to the gun lobby and ignoring the concerns of educators, families and law enforcement experts throughout his term as governor,” the group said in a statement.
The law could lead to more tragedies and less safety in schools, the statement says.
Its president, Scott DiMauro, told cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer that the association doesn’t believe educators should be put in a “dual role” where their primary responsibility is to educate children and then have an extra layer of serving basically as an armed security guard.
DiMauro heard from many teachers who expressed that they have so much they already have to worry about with being on the front line of the pandemic.
“This (law) isn’t really a new issue. The law in Ohio has allowed districts to have policies like this for a long time; the question was about training,” he said. “What the legislation in House Bill 99 did is it gutted training requirements.”
It’s encouraging that most districts are deciding not to arm their teachers and staff, DiMauro said, adding that it’s absurd that a law would put teachers in that kind of position.
“What the state could do is ensure that there are resources for every district that wanted to have fully trained school resource officers on site and enter into a partnership with local law enforcement whose job it is to do this,” he said.
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