Valley View School District discusses arming teachers in House Bill 99 meeting

MONTGOMERY COUNTY — The Valley View School District held a special meeting to talk about arming its teachers following House Bill 99.

News Center 7 had a camera at the meeting, and discussions got loud and emotional.

>>DeWine signs House Bill 99 into law; Schools permitted to arm staff with reduced training

People asked for the board to pass a resolution hiring safety resources instead. Even one of the school’s resource officers stepped forward to speak out against the resolution.

“Here’s the thing, if you’re concerned for your safety and how many buildings I have to cover two, and I do it very well, and I have a bunch of respect for all these teachers here, and they have a bunch of respect for me,” said the resource officer. “But if you’re concerned about that, hire more resource officers and don’t arm them.”

>>House Bill 99 becomes law arming teachers in schools; Local districts start planning

We also talked with school board president Timothy Rudd, and he proposed last night’s discussion.

“I personally wanna make sure that the teachers in our district and the staff in our district and the students in our district are as protected as they can be,” Rudd said. “And I think that the way to do that is to consider what the legislature has now allowed us to do, what our governor has allowed us to do who is by no means a gun guy has signed off on last year with House Bill 99.”

No vote was made at last night’s meeting, but we will continue to follow this.

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