Bellbrook-Sugarcreek getting closer to allowing select staff have guns in school buildings

We are looking at the State of Ohio’s new training requirements for schools planning to arm teachers next year and Bellbrook-Sugarcreek Schools is one of the area districts who will lets employees carry guns.

>>RELATED: Bellbrook-Sugarcreek will have guns in school buildings for active shooter team, not in classrooms

News Center 7′s Xavier Hershovitz went to the school district to find out where the district is in the process and it said these guidelines are just the beginning.

With these training guidelines from the state, schools like Bellbrook High School are getting closer to allowing select staff with specialized training to have access to guns in the event of an emergency.

“Until that information came out— we were kind of at a standstill,” said Dr. Doug Cozad, Superintendent, Bellbrook-Sugarcreek Local Schools.

Hershovitz reports the Bellbrook-Sugarcreek local school district board created an implementation committee for their active shooter response team back in September.

“In the very near future, that implementation committee is going to meet and work through those details in order to move forward in this process,” Cozad said.

The state requires 24 hours of initial training and eight hours of annual recertification but the Bellbrook-Sugarcreek schools will require 40 hours, the superintendent said.

>>RELATED: Bellbrook-Sugarcreek Schools OKs volunteer active shooter response team

“We want highly vetted, highly trained folks in our school district,” Dr. Cozad told Hershovitz. “So it just seemed to be the prudent thing to do to make sure those folks are ready to roll.”

Bellbrook-Sugarcreek schools won’t be the only school district with more training. Once the state-base training launches next spring or summer, they will provide more than what’s required to.

“So we’ll have a basic, we’ll have an advanced and then we’ll have deeper dives into a lot of the other subjects,” said Emily Torok, Ohio School Safety Center Executive Director. “So that’s states training will be much bigger / 4:03 so the states training will be much bigger than the 24 hour and the eight hour curriculum.”

Hershovitz reports the Bellbrook-Sugarcreek school district has not given an exact date when this will be all in place. They want to take their time and get this right.

Along with Bellbrook, Mad River, West Carrollton and Sidney are Miami Valley school districts who say they will arm teachers and staff.