This week, Hamilton school officials announced they plan to allow some school staffers – who volunteer, and are trained and certified to carry a firearm – to have access to a handgun while working.
And in the spring officials at Madison Schools announced they are taking the same actions to augment their already upgraded security measures.
“We are discussing the training involved for certain staff members to carry firearms on school premises,” said Pam Pratt, spokeswoman for Edgewood Schools.
“We are also actively investigating the costs of metal detectors,” said Pratt.
The topics are scheduled to be discussed at Edgewood’s school board meeting on July 23.
The idea of allowing properly trained school workers – including some teachers and building administrators – has long been advocated by Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones.
In recent months Jones has upped his public lobbying of districts – he unveiled a billboard in Hamilton last week critical of that district’s security - to upgrade their security in the wake of school shootings nationwide.
And in the wake of the Parkland, Florida high school shootings that left 17 gunned down, Jones offered free Conceal Carry Warrant training for Butler County teachers.
Moreover, he has taken the unusual move of promising to place more, privately funded billboards, at other school districts where he believes school boards have been lax or slow in upgraded school building security.
Jones welcomed Edgewood’s latest actions and said he expects more local districts will follow suit.
“Some other schools are discussing this because districts would rather be a hard target for attacks than a soft target,” said Jones, who has declined to reveal which Butler County school system will be featured in another billboard.
Hamilton Schools — which saw some residents complain at a recent school board meeting about the district’s plans to incorporate firearm access in schools into its security plan — also plans to adopt the use of metal detectors.
City school officials said the plan to work more closely with Hamilton Police, which already supplies armed school resource officers in the 10,000-student district.
Officials said they plan a number of public meetings in the near future to further gather public input about its security plans. No dates have been announced for those meetings.
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