The Cleveland Metropolitan School District intends to ban teachers and other non-security personnel from carrying guns in Cleveland schools, after state lawmakers slashed the number of training hours required for K-12 staff to carry firearms on school grounds.
Mayor Justin Bibb said he and CMSD CEO Eric Gordon will work with the school board to continue a ban on armed teachers.
The move is a reaction to House Bill 99, which requires at least 24 hours of training before teachers and staff can carry guns in schools, and an additional eight hours of training each year. That’s way down from current law, upheld by the Ohio Supreme Court last year, which only allows educators to carry if they undergo basic peace-officer training, consisting of 600-plus hours of training, or if they worked in law enforcement for 20 years.
The bill allows local school boards to make their own security decisions — so that’s an option Gordon intends to exercise, as he does “not in any way support arming teachers,” CMSD spokesman Tom Ott said.
Gordon plans to take a resolution to the school board “affirming again that CMSD will not permit teachers to bring weapons into our schools or onto our campuses,” Ott said.
On top of the CMSD ban, Bibb said he is “urging every school in this city and every district in this region not to allow weapons in our schools, because arming our teachers with guns is not the solution.” Guards stationed within Cleveland public schools do not carry guns, but mobile officers, who move around the district to respond to incidents, do carry weapons.
State lawmakers recently fast-tracked and passed House Bill 99 in response to the May 24 mass-shooting of 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas. The law still requires Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s signature, but he said he will sign it when it reaches his desk.
Bibb announced the CMSD plan during a news conference at City Hall in which he railed against gun violence and what he views as insufficient state and federal gun laws that don’t give the city the ability to enact its own solutions.
“As mayor of Cleveland, I feel paralyzed and handcuffed by the lack of real comprehensive gun legislation in Congress and the fact that we have a state that doesn’t give me, as mayor, the tools I need to combat the illegal trafficking of guns that plague our city day in and day out,” Bibb said.
Bibb pointed to recently released data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that found the leading cause of death in 2020 among children ages 1 through 18 involved a firearm.
