The Montpelier Exempted Village Schools Board of Education in Montepelier, Ohio has instated a surprising policy in the wake of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School last month: voting to allow school custodians to carry loaded handguns.
The school board took the vote Wednesday night, unanimously deciding that arming its custodians is the best way to protect its students.
"Sitting back and doing nothing and hoping it doesn't happen to you is just not good policy anymore. There is a need for schools to beef up their security measures," the district's Superintendent Jamie Grime told the Toledo Blade. "Having guns in the hands of the right people are not a hindrance. They are a means to protect."
Montpelier is a small town of barely 4,000 people in northwest Ohio about 65 miles west of Toledo. The city's children all go to school on the same campus housing grades K-12. Four custodians in all will be armed, once they've taken a two-day training class in March.
School officials say they've been considering the idea for six months but did not announce it publicly until this week, when, motivated by the massacre at Sandy Hook, they voted to approve the policy.
While arming school employees is not exactly a new idea — one Texas school district has allowed employees to carry concealed weapons since 2007 — it has certainly gained popularity in some circles since Sandy Hook. All other issues aside, doesn't the protection of young children against an armed intruder seem like a lot of pressure to place on someone who wasn't hired to be a bodyguard? This cannot end well.
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