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Ohio House will vote on bill to lower training for armed teachers, school staff

A sign on a central Ohio elementary school, indicating a gun-free zone as defined by state law. House Bill 99 would allow teachers and staff who have completed eight hours of conceal carry permit training to be armed in school.
Karen Kasler
/
Statehouse News Bureau
A sign on a central Ohio elementary school, indicating a gun-free zone as defined by state law. House Bill 99 would allow teachers and staff who have completed eight hours of conceal carry permit training to be armed in school.

The bill targets the law requiring armed school workers to complete peace officer training.

The full Ohio House will vote on a Republican-backed bill that would allow teachers and staff to carry guns in school with the eight hours of training they receive with their concealed carry permit and some additional work, and not more thorough training as currently required by law.

The bill was approved by a House committee yesterday on a party line vote.

Current law requires employees who aren't school resource officers to complete 729 hours of peace officer training to be armed in schools or to have 20 years of law enforcement experience.

Under House Bill 99, armed teachers and school staff would have to have a concealed carry permit, which requires eight hours of training, plus take 18 hours of "general training" and two hours of handgun training.

The Buckeye Firearms Association is among the supporters of the bill. Only a few have testified in favor of it. But more than a hundred people testified against the bill in April, and more than 80 people testified against the bill last week.

Columbus Police Commander Robert Meader told the House Criminal Justice Committee the Ohio Peace Officers Training Commission should have the responsibility to develop training standards for school workers, giving as an example the night he had to confront an armed teenager on a routine call.

“Would you want a school official with this scant training to make that same decision in that same moment?" Meader said, as members of the gun control advocacy group Moms Demand Action, who had testified earlier, sat behind him. "I will challenge this group and the men and women behind me irrespective of their ideology. You can have as much dead bodies as you’re willing to legislate.”

The bill does allow school districts to require more training than the standard set in the law.

The sponsor of the bill, Rep. Thomas Hall (R-Middletown), is the son of a school resource officer involved in a shooting that left four people injured at Madison High School in Butler County in 2016. Hall's father chased the 14-year old shooter out of the building. That shooter was sentenced to juvenile detention until he turns 21 next year.

Parents sued the district when it lowered the training requirements for armed school employees. The case was argued before the Ohio Supreme Court in January. The court split 4-3 when it ruled in June that the district violated state law by allowing certain staff to be armed without completing a peace officer training program or possessing 20 years experience.

Contact Karen at 614-578-6375 or at kkasler@statehousenews.org.
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