Confronting Deadly School Violence: Teaching Teachers how to Shoot Back
Ohio teachers are taking the initiative and receiving training in order to defend their students.
Via WLWT:
WLWT News 5 investigative reporter Todd Dykes discovered a growing number of educators are now carrying guns in the classroom.
But in most cases, parents have no idea.
“Really, the schools all have the local control,” Joe Eaton said. “They know who is going to the sound of that gunfire anyway. All this does is give them the tools and the training when they show up to have other options so they can go home at the end of the day.”
Eaton is the director of a program called Faculty/Administrator Safety Training and Emergency Response, or FASTER.
The purpose of the program is to teach teachers how to neutralize a potentially deadly threat inside a school as quickly as possible and then treat anyone who gets hurt.
In a promotional publication, Eaton writes: “The FASTER program was developed after the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School by concerned parents, school administrators, law enforcement and nationally-recognized safety and medical experts. FASTER is a groundbreaking nonprofit program that gives educators practical violence response training at no cost to the school district. What started in 2013 as a pilot program with 24 educators from Ohio has now grown into a national multi-year curriculum involving the entire community in making schools safer from active killer events.”
…State law lets Ohio school boards decide if staff members with concealed carry licenses can have weapons on school grounds.
Since it’s an issue involving school safety, officials don’t have to tell anyone if a teacher has a gun.
“We don’t publicize the fact that we’re carrying,” the school administrator said. “But we are very confident in the fact that, in the people that do carry. We have a safety team. We screen every applicant that wants to carry.”
The administrator said teachers who have weapons in his district undergo intensive training which is made possible by the Buckeye Firearms Foundation.
“They fund the whole thing. It doesn’t cost our school district anything other than our ammunition and our sidearms. So, why not do it?” he said.
Read more here.
