The Ohio Department of Public Safety released a list of the schools in the state that allow teachers to be armed. Only one school in the Mahoning Valley is on that list - Trumbull Career & Technical Center but it's nothing new for them. 

TCTC has been allowing trained teachers to be armed at school for the past ten years. 

“This building is 300,000 square feet. The response time for local law enforcement is not immediate, it could be five, six, seven minutes,” Jason Gray, Superintendent of TCTC said. “Every second counts.”

The armed teachers will only act in the time it takes police to respond to the school in the event of an active shooter situation. 

“This is precious time that they’re able to hopefully mitigate the problems before we get there or even maybe push that threat to a different area so we can respond away from the student,” Larry Skaggs, Champion Police Chief said. 

At schools that allow this - one concern is how officers will differentiate an armed teacher from an armed school shooter. 

“The teachers, once we get there, their thing is going to be just to lay down their weapons so there is no mistaken identity,” Chief Skaggs said.  

Another concern is that teachers already have a lot on their plate with their primary job of education. 

“When you ask people to take on a second job, which involves serving as armed security personnel, then you're really stretching educators pretty thin,” Scott DiMaura, Ohio Education Association President said.  

The Ohio Education Association would rather have fully trained resource officers handle active shooter situations . TCTC has two resource officers in addition to its armed teachers.

“The people in this building, the students and the staff, I consider my family and I'm going to do whatever I can to protect my family,” Superintendent Gray said. 

Teachers who want to be armed go through initial 24 hours of training and then an additional 8 hours of training every year. TCTC adds onto that and holds active shooter trainings with the teachers, administration, Trumbull County Sheriff Department and the Champion Police Department every year. 

Champion PD has adapted its active shooter protocols for each school in its area - Champion local schools, TCTC, Kent State and Fairhaven Workshops.

“It’s a little bit different but our techniques are going to be a lot of the same things that we’re going to do on how to clear hallways, clear classrooms together,” Chief Skaggs said. “We’re going to respond accordingly and hopefully this never has to happen but if it does we’ll be ready.”