Ohio Senate expected to vote on bill lowering training for arming teachers
COLUMBUS, Ohio June 1 2022— Ohio Republicans are moving to lower training requirements for teachers who want to carry guns following the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School where 19 children and two teachers died.
But how low they go may be decided by Sen. Frank Hoagland, R-Mingo Junction.
“We did some studies looking at, you know, putting a weapon system in a teacher’s hand. It’s a failure. I have no interest in doing that,” Hoagland told the USA Today Ohio Bureau in December. “But I’m not going to tell schools that they can’t do it because that’s your first line of defense…I think we should be vetting and validating the individuals.”
House Bill 99 would let school districts arm teachers and other personnel after 20 total hours of training. Current law requires peace officer training, which is about 728 hours.
Most Republicans say it’s about finding a reasonable minimum, and schools could always go above and beyond or ban weapons altogether.
Democrats and law enforcement say 20 hours of training is far too little. And Hoagland, who decides whether HB 99 gets a vote in his committee, has expressed his own concerns.
But the retired Navy SEAL appears committed to finding a compromise. The bill is up for amendments and a possible vote Tuesday afternoon and could be on Gov. Mike DeWine’s desk by the end of the week.
How we got here
Ohio allows individual school districts to decide whether staff can carry firearms, but the question, for years, had been how much training that law requires.
In June 2021, the Ohio Supreme Court ended the ambiguity, deciding in a 4-3 ruling that school personnel who want to carry firearms would need extensive police training or 20 years of experience.
Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor cited a state law banning schools from employing security guards or “other position in which such person goes armed while on duty” without peace officer training or experience.
“Applying the plain, ordinary meaning of the statutory language, a school employee who is not employed as a special police officer or security guard is employed in an ‘other position,'” O’Connor wrote.
Justice Sharon Kennedy, who is running to replace O’Connor in November 2022 and is a former police officer, disagreed. But the decision was 4-3, and school districts across Ohio had to get rid of their policies or raise the training requirements.
Before the court issued its ruling on the southwest Ohio case, state Rep. Thomas Hall, R-Middletown, introduced HB 99.
“In my bill, we simply give local control to the school boards and local governing bodies to decide what amount of training is necessary,” Hall said at the time.
It passed the Ohio House 58-33 in November 2021 and had one hearing in the Senate in March. Hoagland and Hall have been having conversations for months, but the urgency around passing this legislation appeared to increase following the Uvalde shooting.
In 2013, the year after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, more than 30 states introduced legislation relating to arming teachers or other school staff, according to the Council of State Governments.
“But let’s really ask ourselves: Can you kill your kids,” Hoagland said in December. “Because that’s what you’re asking a teacher who probably spends more time with those kids than the parents do. And then we’re going to put the pressure on them to take that shot in a populated hallway?”
HB 99 is up for possible amendments and a vote in Hoagland’s committee Tuesday afternoon.
“I think the one thing anybody wants is to make sure that if that ever happens, there’s some ability for children to be protected,” Senate President Matt Huffman, R-Lima, told reporters last week. “Key to that is the appropriate training.”
But Democrats and public school advocates still have some concerns like parental notification.
The bill doesn’t require school districts to tell parents that they plan to let teachers, coaches, bus drivers and other staff carry firearms.
Ohio Education Association President Scott DiMauro has said it’s not about knowing who has a gun but how much training they’ve had so parents can decide whether they feel that’s adequate. It’s about parental choice.
For example, Highland Elementary School in South Bloomfield Township had authorized its staff to carry guns. But parents didn’t know until a first-grader removed his grandmother’s gun from an unlocked desk in March 2019 and pointed it at another student.
Ohio Federation of Teachers President Melissa Cropper has said she will ask DeWine to veto the bill if it passes in the state Senate.
