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DeWine confirms he'll sign bill allowing armed personnel in Ohio schools with 24 hours of training

 Governor Mike DeWine (R) takes questions from media.
Daniel Konik
/
Statehouse News Bureau
Governor Mike DeWine (R) takes questions from media.

Ohio teachers and other school employees and volunteers could start carrying weapons in school buildings as soon as this fall with a bill that lowers training requirements for those armed personnel.

Gov. Mike DeWine has confirmed that he’ll sign the bill passed by Republican state lawmakers Wednesday.

The Republican-backed bill dramatically lowers the required training for armed school personnel from more than 700 hours to 24 hours. DeWine, who had campaigned for gun restrictions after the mass shooting in Dayton in 2019, said signing this bill is part of an overall plan to harden school security.

“Ultimately, each school will make its own decision. So we’re not telling any school district – we have over 600 school districts in the state – the school board of that school will decide whether they want to arm teachers or not," DeWine said.

DeWine spoke at an event in northeast Ohio announcing that Ford would start building an all-electric commercial vehicle in Sheffield near Cleveland. It'll invest $1.5 billion and hire 1800 workers.

DeWine said he asked for lawmakers to include scenario based training similar to training police officers get and continuing training in this bill, and he says the state will provide for extra training.

“We will also be giving schools the choice of providing additional training, that we will stake out, provide for, if they decide that they want more than 24 hours for a teacher," DeWine said.

The bill passed mostly along party lines, with only a few Republicans siding with Democrats against it.

Copyright 2022 The Statehouse News Bureau. To see more, visit The Statehouse News Bureau.

Karen is a lifelong Ohioan who has served as news director at WCBE-FM, assignment editor/overnight anchor at WBNS-TV, and afternoon drive anchor/assignment editor in WTAM-AM in Cleveland. In addition to her daily reporting for Ohio’s public radio stations, she’s reported for NPR, the BBC, ABC Radio News and other news outlets. She hosts and produces the Statehouse News Bureau’s weekly TV show “The State of Ohio”, which airs on PBS stations statewide. She’s also a frequent guest on WOSU TV’s “Columbus on the Record”, a regular panelist on “The Sound of Ideas” on ideastream in Cleveland, appeared on the inaugural edition of “Face the State” on WBNS-TV and occasionally reports for “PBS Newshour”. She’s often called to moderate debates, including the Columbus Metropolitan Club’s Issue 3/legal marijuana debate and its pre-primary mayoral debate, and the City Club of Cleveland’s US Senate debate in 2012.