By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
A week after a shooter killed 21 in a Texas elementary, Ohio legislators voted to allow teachers with minimal training to be armed in schools.
Local educators are mystified how this could be Ohio’s best response to the ongoing threat of school shootings.
“It’s a horrible idea,” said Bowling Green City Council President Mark Hollenbaugh, who is president of the North Baltimore Education Association. “The answer to gun violence isn’t more guns.”
“I think it’s really sad that’s the first place they go. What will they do if they find out arming teachers won’t work? Will they arm students next?” Hollenbaugh said.
“It will definitely be my interest to keep the district from doing that,” he said of arming teachers.
Jeff Nichols, head of the Bowling Green Education Association, shared the sentiment.
“It’s very concerning,” Nichols said. “What scares me and many of the teachers is the training is 24 hours.”
Nichols noted the irony of Ohio legislators being unable to come up with a constitutional method of funding schools – nearly 30 years after being ordered to do so. But yet, they passed a bill putting guns in the classrooms in a week.
“I think we’re all kind of processing it. I never thought it would get to this,” Nichols said. “We not only have to be on top of the job as teacher and counselor – now you have to be a security guard, too.”
House Bill 99, which Gov. Mike DeWine has said he will sign into law, shoots down current law in Ohio that allows teachers to arm themselves only after completing more than 700 hours of police training and receiving approval from their local school board.
The latest version doesn’t specify any minimum amount of training hours. Instead, it says teachers would need to undergo “initial instruction and training” to carry a weapon that “shall not exceed” 24 hours. From there, the teacher would need annual recertification training which “shall not exceed” eight hours.
A local board of education would need to opt in to allow its teachers to arm themselves. That board could choose to mandate additional training, but it wouldn’t be required.
Legislators representing Wood County – State Sen. Theresa Gavarone, R-Huron, and State Rep. Haraz Ghanbari, R-Perrysburg – both voted in favor of the bill. Gavarone was listed as a co-sponsor.
Bowling Green students are also feeling frustrated about the “solutions” being imposed by the state legislature. A group of students gathered outside the high school on the last day of the school year to demand meaningful legislative reform for guns.
One student, Faeth Bucchop, expressed anger that the onus is put on students and teachers to undergo training to defend themselves – rather than efforts being made to stop the shooters.
“I’m sick and tired of being told what I can do to stay alive,” she said.
Bowling Green Superintendent Francis Scruci said he will not recommend that the board of education allows guns in classrooms.
“I’m not in favor of arming teachers in the classroom,” he said. “They are there to educate our students. They got into education for students – not to shoot people.”
“I will never recommend to the board that we arm teachers,” Scruci said.
Law enforcement has some mixed reactions to the bill.
Wood County Sheriff Mark Wasylyshyn said the legislation may make sense for some very rural school districts – like those in the Appalachian region of Ohio – that are far from law enforcement.
“Each school board should decide what’s best for that school,” he said.
If districts do allow teachers to carry guns, school officials should coordinate with local law enforcement on what to do once officers arrive on the scene.
“I would hope they would work with their local sheriff and police chief for additional training,” Wasylyshyn said.
Bowling Green Police Chief Tony Hetrick acknowledged that some rural areas of Ohio may find arming teachers an effective method of defending schools. But in places like Bowling Green, where police response is within a few minutes, putting guns in classrooms is not necessary.
Hetrick expressed concern about the limited amount of training required in the bill.
“We continually train because using firearms is a perishable skill,” the chief said. It’s a matter of use it or lose it, he said.
“It’s pretty hard to grasp in a day or two,” Hetrick said. “You don’t become a teacher to carry a firearm. To me it’s two separate skill sets and mindsets.”
At Monday evening’s Bowling Green City Council meeting, a resident questioned the police division’s policy of waiting until three officers are on the scene before engaging a shooter.
Hetrick said Tuesday morning that the diamond formation of three officers entering a scene is an old tactic not used since the Columbine shooting more than 20 years ago.
“Our policy is first there, first in. We don’t wait,” the chief said. “The first officer there goes in directly to the shooter, bypassing any distractions, and engages the shooter.”
Bowling Green Mayor Mike Aspacher “categorically rejected” the questioning of the police division’s response protocol. “Our officers are trained rigorously” to deal with violent situations, he said.
“The first officer on the site will confront an active shooter,” Aspacher said.
House Bill 99 was also a topic of conversation during the Not In Our Town Bowling Green meeting last week.
It was noted that state legislators – many who have questioned the ability of teachers to educate students – are now asking them to defend them with firearms.
“They don’t trust teachers to pick out library books and curriculum, but they want them to carry guns,” said Ana Brown, co-chairperson of NIOT.
Dawn Shinew, dean of the College of Education and Human Development at Bowling Green State University, pointed out that every education association in the state provided testimony against the bill.
Teachers spend hours upon hours learning to teach, and police do the same learning to shoot. It makes no sense, Shinew said, to “put a gun in their hand with 24 hours of training.”
At last week’s hearing in Columbus, two men spoke in support of the bill. The rest of the four hours were occupied by dozens of teachers, teachers’ union officials, anti-gun violence activists, and a Fraternal Order of Police lobbyist, all testifying in opposition.
The teachers who testified argued it’s unrealistic to think an educator would react prudently and fire accurately at a shooter in a chaotic and precarious situation after mere hours of training. They’d need to execute keen marksmanship in a fraught situation to avoid hitting their own students. Several noted the bill makes no consideration as to how teachers must store the weapon, which could yield a flood of gun violence of its own.
Speaking in favor of the bill was Rob Sexton, a lobbyist with the Buckeye Firearms Association, who argued that arming teachers gives students a “fighting chance” in the face of a shooter.
But NIOT member John Zanfardino questioned that logic, pointing out that there were many “good people with guns” in Uvalde, Texas, who were well trained – yet the response still went horribly wrong.
“If I had a child now, I’d be afraid to send my child to school,” he said.
The massacre not only took 21 lives, but left many others deeply damaged, Zanfardino said.
“They will never be the same,” he said of the children in the school at the time of the shootings.
The idea of arming teachers, which gained popularity after a spate of school shootings in the U.S., is broadly unpopular with educators. In a 2019 national survey of 2,926 teachers, more than 95% indicated they don’t believe teachers should carry a gun in the classroom. Even among the 16% of respondents who were gun owners, only 11.5% of those said being armed while teaching should be a part of a teacher’s duties.
Earlier this year, analysis in the New England Journal of Medicine found that firearms have overtaken vehicle crashes as the leading cause of death for American children, teens and young adults.
Emily Dunipace, co-chairperson of NIOT, pointed out that the problem extends beyond schools, with mass shootings in the past couple weeks at U.S. schools, church, grocery store and hospital.
“We’re all at risk of being a victim of a gunshot,” Dunipace said. “We’ve got a societal problem.”
Meanwhile, the polls have shown that the majority of Americans want more gun controls in place. Zanfardino said about 90% of the nation favors better background checks for gun purchases.
NIOT members agreed the best way to combat arming teachers in schools locally will be to take their concerns to the Bowling Green Board of Education.
