Meet Mary Davis: The woman DeWine tasked with creating the training for armed teachers

When Ohio Republicans lowered the training hours for teachers who want to carry guns at school, they also told districts to submit curriculum plans for those hours.

And on Tuesday Gov. Mike DeWine announced his pick for the person who reviews those programs.

Her name is Mary Davis, and she's had a long career in law enforcement.

Davis served as an Athens County Sheriff's Deputy, a sergeant with the Hocking College Police Department, the deputy director of education for the Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy and Commission (OPOTA), and then executive director of OPOTA.

She also holds a bachelor’s degree in criminology from Ohio University and a master of business administration from Franklin University.

"(She) has a great, great deal of experience," DeWine said.

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The governor told teachers at the annual Ohio School Safety Summit that he asked Davis to develop a curriculum for those 24 hours of initial training with a "significant emphasis" on scenario-based training. That means lessons that simulate active shooter situations.

"When you need to act, you can only perform as well as you’ve been trained," Davis told the Ohio Attorney General's Office in 2014 when she took over as head of OPOTA.

House Bill 99, which DeWine signed in June, requires four hours of scenario-based and a maximum of 20 hours for first-aid training, history of school shootings and reunification education.

That's down significantly from the 700 hours of peace officer training Ohio required prior to the new law's passage.

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DeWine previously called the change a necessary removal of unnecessary training. But he told reporters Tuesday that armed teachers are one, "small" part of school safety. Mental health counseling, threat assessments and security protocols are all part of keeping students safe.

"All the other things (teachers) do every day are frankly a lot bigger than that," he said.

Anna Staver is a reporter for the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau, which serves the Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio.

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio armed teachers: DeWine names training supervisor