JEROMESVILLE – Hillsdale Local Schools officials are considering adding armed staff members to the district’s lineup of measures designed to improve school safety.
Recognizing the idea may be controversial and desiring transparency about the district’s intentions, the district is soliciting community input from district residents via an online survey, according to Supt. Steve Dickerson.
Board of education members will hear a brief update on the survey results at its regular meeting at 7 p.m. on Tuesday in the high school media center, Dickerson said.
Along with the survey, Dickerson posted an “Armed Staff in Schools Article” to the district’s website. The “article” contains a Q&A from Coloradans For Civil Liberties and refers readers to the website of a program called FASTER (Faculty/Administrator Safety Training & Emergency Response), which trains school staff to use firearms in violence response situations.
The program is funded by Buckeye Firearms Foundation, a non-profit arm of the Buckeye Firearms Association.
Dickerson said the survey has been up for about a month. As of Monday, he said, approximately 83 percent of respondents responded affirmatively when asked if they “feel that for the safety of our students and staff that the Hillsdale Local Schools should move forward in seeking volunteer staff members to go through the in-depth training required to conceal carry in our buildings.”
Dickerson said the district has not decided whether to proceed with a program for arming a small number of staff members. Board members and administrators are cognizant, he said, of concerns community members may have.
“It’s just a matter of exploring all our options,” Dickerson said. “We wanted to be upfront with our community so they would know if we’re going to move in this direction.”
School districts in Ohio are not required to notify their residents before arming staff members.
Some other area school districts have board policies written to allow certain staff members to carry firearms at the discretion of school officials. Those districts have not disclosed publicly whether arming staff is part of their confidential safety plans, so it is possible some area districts already have armed staff members.
Dickerson said while some people have suggested the information he posted from Buckeye Firearms Association is biased, he felt a need to post it to clear up misconceptions.
“A lot of people think you’re just going to put a gun with every teacher, and that’s far from the truth,” Dickerson said.
Dickerson said what likely would happen first, if the district decides to proceed, is the district would ask for volunteers from among the staff. Ideally, Dickerson said, volunteers would be spread among the district’s three buildings.
From there, volunteers would have to pass a training, likely from the FASTER program.
“I was very sold on the intensiveness of the program,” Dickerson said, adding that the program “has no problem letting people know if they’re not right for this role.
“I’m very comfortable that the program would weed people out in a hurry,” he said.
Dickerson said consideration of arming staff is just one of many school safety steps the district has taken and continues to take in light of both violent incidents nationally and school threats locally.
The most important and most expensive step to date, he said, was the district’s decision to hire a school resource officer for next school year. The officer will be an Ashland County Sheriff’s Office deputy, paid through a combination of school district dollars and state grant funds.
The district also added a second set of doors at the middle school and is installing a key fob system for tracking purposes, he said. Also under consideration are door barricade options and shatterproof film for windows.
Each of the recommendations have come from the district’s safety committee, which includes school staff members and representatives of the sheriff’s office and local fire departments.
“We value our students and staff, and we don’t want to cut corners on security and safety,” Dickerson said.
