volunteer armed school staff comments in Madison

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M-Quigley
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Joined: Wed Jun 24, 2015 10:06 pm
Location: Western Ohio

volunteer armed school staff comments in Madison

Post by M-Quigley »

https://www.whio.com/news/court-docs-de ... GhMBGsJuO/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

There's one thing the MSM never asks people like the parent who is worried the FASTER training given to the staff is inadequate, and that is what in their opinion is adequate training? Most of the people I've seen and heard who say such things barely know enough about firearms to know what end of the gun the bullet comes out of. Almost every one of the people I've talked to that espouses this view when asked has no clue as to what adequate training is for school staff, only that

A: whatever number of hours they're getting isn't enough, or

B: it isn't several hundred hours of police academy training. It doesn't dawn on these people or they know but don't care that the police academy teaches far more things than firearms usage, and that a LEO's use of a firearm goes beyond defending themselves in a classroom.
The court challenge came in response to a gun policy that was passed about a year ago in response to a 2016 shooting at Madison Jr./Sr. High School, where a student injured four of his classmates. A group of parents sued the district last September seeking an injunction blocking the district from arming teachers and other staff without the training required of law enforcement officials — 728 hours versus the 26 hours the school has in its policy — and a court order requiring disclosure of policies and procedures for arming staff.

Erin Gabbard, the lead plaintiff, read documents — including depositions taken with the three armed staff and administrators — released recently after the school district won the lawsuit.

“I think we all felt helpless three years ago and we don’t want to feel that way again, no one on either side of this,” Gabbard told the Journal-News. “I think we can’t ignore the real safety risks that come with bringing guns into the classroom with such inadequate training.

“I think our kids, and our staff and the parents in this district deserve a more comprehensive, thorough and thoughtful policy.”

School Board President David French in his deposition said that, given the remote location of the schools, the board needed more protection options. He said officials added another school resource officer after the shooting, but that day proved how vulnerable the staff and students are.

“These teachers put their lives on the line. We had one teacher, didn’t know what was going on, he locked his doors. He didn’t know if it was a group of armed people or what,” French testified. “He’s a coach. He passed out his duffel bags. Said kids, if someone comes through this door, I’ll protect you at all cost. And he gave them baseball bats. That’s all he had in (his) control. That’s it.”
Here are some of the reasons the volunteers gave for volunteering
“I can remember thinking to myself, you know, here I am, the only thing standing between these kids, and I really just had a textbook in my hands. And I just was, like, this is not a fair fight, “ John Doe No. 3 testified. “All I could think of was that I have 25 other lives behind me, and what am I supposed to do with a book?”

John Doe No. 1’s students were having lunch in the cafeteria where the shooting occurred. He was in his classroom about 200 yards away with one student serving lunch detention.

“We were basically told to hide and hope for the best. That’s the lockdown,” he said. “Teachers are not allowed to do anything except hold a book, throw things.”
JEaton
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Re: volunteer armed school staff comments in Madison

Post by JEaton »

The 5-6 people making this an issue in Madison could not be more disingenuous in their motives.

The fact is Madison made the decision to have firearms are part of their safety plan years ago when they brought the first SRO in to the school. This plan worked about as well as you could hope for in 2016 when they had their shooting. The armed person was able to respond in about 10 seconds and there were no deaths in the shooting. Now when Madison simply wants to expand and improve this proven plan, these parents decide to object. Truly sad they put an agenda ahead of kids safety.

As far as policy goes, the staff have to follow state law as far as using deadly force goes so that is another mute point.

The other issue they brought up in another article was that one of the staff failed the FASTER qualification twice before passing the third time. This is true. During the Level 1 class we only allow the staff two attempt to pass to the OPOTA qualification to our level. Then they have to come back later and requalify. Generally each class there is 1 or 2 who do not pass during the class, generally because it is at the end of 3 very long stressful days, coupled with fatigue and dehydration and generally blistered hands after 1000 rounds in 3 days. What they failed to mention is that in over 6 years of training, all staff have except for about 5 have at least qualified at the level required for police in Ohio (80%), but FASTER requires a higher demonstration of proficiency to pass (92%) and this is where the failures came from.

One other issue they are focused on is that the staff did not do the psych test before training, this was likely just a timing issue since by the time Madison announced they were using FASTER for their training, 2018 classes were almost full. (Parkland increased demand tremendously). But they parents are right the psych tests generally are just 'checking a box' because truly who knows staff better, someone who has worked with them everyday for possibly years or someone who spends 45 minutes giving them a standard test?

JLE
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