Increasing amount of Ohio school districts arming teachers, staff; local district among them

RIVERSIDE — In 2017, West Liberty-Salem High School in Salem, Ohio, joined the list of schools that have experienced a shooting.

The only visible scars are bullet holes in a bathroom wall, but the psychological trauma still lingers.

[DOWNLOAD: Free WHIO-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]

“Later on, they got the good news that nobody died, but their brain had already experienced that traumatic experience,” Principal Greg Johnson told CBS Evening News.

In that bathroom, Johnson and fellow principal Andy McGill rushed to help a student who had been shot twice, with the shooter just feet away.

McGill was able to talk the shooter, another student, into putting the gun down.

TRENDING STORIES:

• ‘Scariest thing I’ve ever seen;’ 4 hospitalized after crash involving stolen vehicle in Trotwood
• Video shows crash involving police cruiser driving through red light
• Do you recognize him? Deputies looking for man accused of withdrawing money with fake passport

Following the shooting, the pair led the drive to implement new security measures, including bulletproof glass, better window exits, and a school resource officer — but they chose not to arm any staff or teachers.

Over the last year, the number of school districts in Ohio that allow staff to be armed quadrupled, with 14 percent of the state’s districts now participating, according to the Ohio School Safety Center.

About 50 miles south of Salem, just outside Dayton, the Mad River Local School District has given guns to about 20 of its teachers. Their identities are confidential as part of the district’s policy.

Chad Wyen is the superintendent at Mad River and the only armed staff member whose identity is public.

It was Wyen’s idea to have guns near teachers in a safe, rather than on them — a strategy to prevent unauthorized access.

“So typically, there’s a live round in the chamber. We have to be prepared,” Wyen said.

He told CBS that guns in classrooms serve as a measure of assistance for the single resource officer for eight schools across the district.

One teacher, whose identity is being kept concealed by CBS News to comply with the district’s safety measures, said she recognizes the possibility of a shooter being a student that she knows.

“At that point in time, that student’s not my student. They are now a murderer, and I am stopping a threat. And that’s to save other lives,” the teacher said.

[SIGN UP: WHIO-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]