http://www.wsaz.com/content/news/Local-school-district-has-been-arming-teachers-for-years-475340013.html
IRONTON, Ohio (WSAZ) -- The debate over arming teachers is heating up across the country but one school in our region has already been doing so for years.
Rock Hill Superintendent Wes Hairston says the district started arming teachers and staff after the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012.
Arming teachers is legal in Ohio. School boards are allowed by law to quietly authorize staff to carry concealed weapons in school, but at Rock Hill it's no secret.
Signs are posted at every entrance reading, "Rock Hill Local School District staff is trained and armed. Any attempt to harm children or staff will be met with whatever force necessary to protect our students."
Hairston says it serves as a warning, "If you come here and you intend to harm any students or staff, you're going to meet resistance and it's going to happen quickly."
The district tested the measure with a few teachers initially before training several more staff members in 2013 and going public with the initiative in 2014.
Due to safety concerns, Hairston will not say who is armed, how many teachers are armed and where they are located, information he says even the school board doesn't know. But he does say that they're well armed in every school.
"It's not a panacea and it's not a guarantee of absolute safety but we feel pretty confident that if we had an active shooter situation that we could neutralize it fairly quickly," Hairston said.
One of the biggest concerns over proposals in other states surrounds training of teachers. At Rock Hill, Hairston says the training is intense and strict.
"It's not just a situation where they have concealed carry, that's not nearly enough," Hairston said. "We expect our people to be able to shoot as well as the Ohio Highway Patrolmen."
Teachers undergo training at the Tactical Defense Institute in West Union, Ohio. They are also trained through FASTER, or Faculty/Administrator Safety Training and Emergency Response. It's a program designed specifically for educators.
Hairston says teachers also undergo scenario training. He says there are strict requirements to pass and teachers are tested at least twice a year.
"This is not like we just found folks that want to put a gun on and want to conceal carry," Hairston said. "That's just simply not enough."
He says it's also not for everyone.
"We spend a great deal of time studying our staff. It's not just having the physical ability to shoot a gun, it has to be people that are mentally stable that can handle high pressure situations and can make a differentiation or distinction between between someone who is just angry and someone who plans to come into the building and inflict harm on our students or staff," Hairston said.
He also stresses that the decision is not about politics.
"This is not about liberal versus conservative, republican versus democrat," Hairston said. "It's about protecting children and staff and purely that, nothing more, nothing less. We will go to every length possible to make sure we will keep our staff and students safe."
The district already has several other safety measures in place. Hairston says arming teachers is the last option.
Every room is equipped with barriers that can be placed underneath classroom doors during a lock-down. They also have trauma kits that include tourniquets and chest wound bandages.
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