MOUNT VERNON — After the school shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018, the East Knox School Board of Education passed a resolution authorizing Supt. Steve Larcomb to allow staff to carry firearms.
Now in 2022, a school shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas has put the gun debate back into the forefront of schools around the country, including Ohio.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine passed House Bill 99 on Monday that will allow teachers to be armed in schools with a maximum 24 hours of training, rather than the previous required 700 hours.
According to DeWine, House Bill 99 is an effort to cut down on unnecessary training hours and make the training relevant for teachers.
“We worked closely with members of the legislature and other experts to carefully craft the law to ensure that anyone authorized to carry a gun on school property would have thorough, school-specific training,” DeWine said.
In a press release sent hours after DeWine’s decision, the Ohio Education Association stated it was “disappointed, but not surprised” by DeWine’s decision to sign House Bill 99, “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.”
“Our students and educators need to be in safe environments where they can focus on teaching and learning, not on the threat of having unprepared, woefully undertrained people — regardless of their good intentions — making split-second life-or-death decisions about whether to pull the trigger in a chaotic classroom full of innocent bystanders,” said OEA President Scott DiMauro.
School boards will have the final say on whether they choose to arm staff in their respected districts, and can require more than the state maximum of 24 training hours under the new law.
The Ohio Democratic Party immediately lambasted DeWine’s decision, citing the bill as dangerous.
“This is not what Ohioans meant when they called on DeWine to ‘do something’ following the 2019 mass shooting in Dayton,” Ohio Democratic Party Chair Elizabeth Walters said in a press release.
“Ohioans were counting on DeWine to grow a spine and stand up to the gun lobby,” she said. “All he did was cash the gun lobby’s campaign checks and do its bidding instead.”
According to reporting from Cleveland.com, DeWine had received more contributions from the gun lobby than any other state-based politician since 2010 at $8,500.
DeWine also toted the $4.8 million school safety grants he approved in late May at the press conference. Two schools in the region, the Buckeye Community School in London and in Marion, received grants from this program.
So far, the statewide decision will have little impact on Knox County schools.
There has been little to no inquiry since the East Knox school board’s decision to authorize arming staff members several years ago, Supt. Larcomb said via email.
“It was relatively shortly thereafter that the district entered into an agreement with the Knox County Sheriff’s Office for a school resource officer,” Larcomb said.
Larcomb believes the program has been “very successful” since its inception at East Knox. He hasn’t received requests from other school districts about arming staff members due to the implementation of the SRO program.
Centerburg Local School District has one school resource officer (SRO), Supt. Mike Hebenthal said.
Hebenthal said it’s too early to comment on House Bill 99. Previously, the Centerburg board of education decided not to move forward with allowing teachers to be armed in school, he said.
Danville Local Schools isn’t planning on allowing teacher’s to carry, even with the passage of DeWine’s bill. The district has roughly 56 teachers and 120 total staff members.
Danville’s board of education discussed the issue “a couple of years ago,” and Supt. Jason Snively discovered the community at that time wasn’t — and still isn’t — ready to develop a weapons policy for staff.
Snively said safety concerns were a reason behind the strong opposition from the community.
“It added responsibility to deal with a weapon during a school day,” he said. “We want teachers to focus on education.”
Previously, Danville schools also had a school resource officer but hasn’t found one for this upcoming school year, Snively said.
The officer had been hired by the school district beforehand, but the Knox County Commissioners have a program that allows county school districts to have a county law enforcement official. The school pays $15,000 while the county makes up the difference.
For school safety training, Danville routinely has training with staff and students in the form of lockdown and active shooter drills, revisiting its emergency operation policy made by the district administration and SRO officer, the superintendent said.
Danville has three councilors, one being a licensed mental health councilor. It also “allows behavioral health partners” and works alongside the county health department, he said.
“Kids are pretty good looking out for each other,” he said. “Major issues, pretty good watching out for each other.”
Attempts to reach Mount Vernon City Schools and Fredericktown superintendents were unsuccessful.
