On this episode of The Legislature Today, there was contentious third reading debate in the House of Delegates over the much talked about bill to arm teachers as concealed carry protection officers.
Updated on Thursday, Feb. 22, 2024 at 10:14 a.m.
On this episode of The Legislature Today, there was contentious third reading debate in the House of Delegates over the much talked about bill to arm teachers as concealed carry protection officers. Randy Yohe has the latest on House Bill 4299.
In the Senate, the chamber had one of its busier days as official deadlines draw closer. Next Wednesday is Crossover Day, meaning that all bills have to be out of their chamber of origin to have a chance of becoming law. Briana Heaney has more.
Also, the Senate Government Organization Committee advanced a bill that would promote Randall Reid-Smith, the curator of the Department of Arts, Culture and History, to a cabinet secretary. The committee approved Senate Bill 865, which now goes to the full chamber. West Virginia Public Broadcasting is part of the Department of Arts, Culture and History.
A health facility would not need to obtain a certificate of need to operate in West Virginia if a certain House bill becomes law. Emily Rice has more.
Special education educators, students and their families gathered at the Capitol to advocate for more support in their classrooms. Chris Schulz has the story.
And, on History Day at the Capitol, the rotunda is sent back in time. It becomes a place of living history, where the lives and lessons from our state’s past become touchstones for the present and future. Randy Yohe has the story.
Finally, women’s health has been a popular topic in the Senate this year. Many bills and amendments have been introduced that focus on women’s health policy. Briana Heaney speaks with Sen. Patricia Rucker, R-Jefferson, and Del. Anitra Hamilton, D-Monongalia, about women’s health in the state and legislation that affects women.
Having trouble viewing the video below? Click here to watch it on YouTube.
The Legislature Today is West Virginia’s only television/radio simulcast devoted to covering the state’s 60-day regular legislative session.
Watch or listen to new episodes Monday through Friday at 6 p.m. on West Virginia Public Broadcasting.
House Bill 4299 permits staff in K-12 schools to be authorized to carry concealed firearms, along with tasers and stun guns, and become a designated school protection officer, or SPO.
A contentious debate over the much-talked-about bill on third reading to arm teachers as concealed carry protection officers took place in the House of Delegates on Wednesday.
House Bill 4299 permits staff in K-12 schools to be authorized to carry concealed firearms, along with tasers and stun guns, and become a designated school protection officer, or SPO. The bill states that any SPO would be on a voluntary basis.
The bill gives county school districts the option to establish, or not establish, SPOs at their schools. A bill amendment raised would mandate that a school district must assign a teacher who decided on their own to take the full training, in concealed carry and crisis intervention, to be an armed SPO.
Del. Evan Hansen, D-Monongalia, opposed the amendment. He said it rejects the original choice for school districts to opt in or out of having School Resource Officers.
“This amendment would force the school system to allow guns into schools with school protection officers,” Hansen said. “Even if they have made a policy decision to go another route with the School Resource Officers, or the school security officers. It overrides that local control.”
Del. Todd Kirby, R-Raleigh, was among several who supported a teacher’s right to opt in as an SPO themselves.
“Any teacher, any school personnel is going to pick up the mantle and take on this responsibility, which is voluntary in nature,” Kirby said. “So, it is permissive. That allows individual teachers to make up their own mind as to whether or not they think this is good for them or their classroom. But if we allow it to be quote unquote, permissive with the school boards, then you might as well not even pass this bill.”
The amendment passed 79-21.
In debating the bill itself, Del. Kayla Young, D-Kanawha, opposed the proposal, worrying about safety and implementation.
“I’m worried that there was such little training, that these folks are not going to be accurately prepared to do this,” Young said. “I think that in this legislature, we’ve already passed really good stuff to keep kids safe in schools this year, the school guardian bill to allow those law enforcement officers who have like 25 weeks of training to come back into the schools and protect our kids.”
Del. Chris Phillips, R-Barbour, supported the bill, speaking as a parent who got a school lockdown call.
“We had a student hold an entire classroom hostage in school,” he said. “I had my son and my niece and at that moment, all I cared about was it. All I hoped for was that there was someone there to protect my son. Unfortunately, there wasn’t. The teacher did everything she could, got the kids against the wall, said if they come in, we’ll try to take them down.”
Del. Shawn Fluharty, D-Ohio, opposed the bill to arm teachers, saying there is no public consensus for the measure.
“Not a single expert came in and said, ‘We need this legislation.’ Not a single principal came in and said, ‘I want this for my schools.’ Nobody from the school district came in and said, ‘We need this legislation.’ We sat through the committee process, none of that came up. No parental notification, no student notification,” Fluharty said.
Bill co-sponsor Kirby said the proposal safeguards school classrooms and acts as a proactive school shooter deterrent.
“This just provides an additional layer that would make anyone that wants to come into our schools and harm our beautiful children, make them think twice about doing that,” Kirby said. “Because the classroom they go into, there could be an armed teacher, or an armed personnel member that would confront them and stop the reign of terror.”
After lengthy back and forth debate continued along party lines, HB 4299 passed 89-11 and now goes to the Senate.
On this episode of The Legislature Today, small and rural schools in West Virginia find it difficult to staff school resource officers and other security personnel, but a bill now making its way through the House of Delegates would allow teachers and other school staff to carry a firearm or other weapon on school grounds. Chris Schulz spoke with Del. Elliot Pritt, R-Fayette, and Del. Anitra Hamilton, D-Monongalia, for their perspective.
On this episode of The Legislature Today, in the midst of school shootings like Park View, Sandy Hook and Uvalde, school safety continues to be a pressing issue across the country.
In West Virginia, small and rural schools find it difficult to staff school resource officers and other security personnel, but a bill now making its way through the House of Delegates would allow teachers and other school staff to carry a firearm or other weapon on school grounds. Chris Schulz spoke with Del. Elliot Pritt, R-Fayette, and Del. Anitra Hamilton, D-Monongalia, for their perspective.
In the House, along with 13 bills on third reading, several resolutions were passed, and tributes were read honoring fallen West Virginia combat veterans.
In the Senate, the chamber addressed keeping West Virginia safer online. The chamber approved bills addressing ways that AI (artificial intelligence) could be used to sexually exploit children on the internet and protect the personal information of people online. Briana Heaney has more.
Also, the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee on Monday afternoon considered an idea as old as the nation’s founding: Creating a currency backed by gold and silver. Curtis Tate has that story.
The House and Senate Education committees started the week off by considering changes to homeschooling requirements, as well as sports outside the school. Chris Schulz has more.
Finally, West Virginia’s senior citizens took center stage this Tuesday for AARP Day at the Capitol. There is a core group of statewide AARP leaders who lobby for certain legislation just about every day of every regular session – and 2024 is no different.
Having trouble viewing the video below? Click here to watch it on YouTube.
The Legislature Today is West Virginia’s only television/radio simulcast devoted to covering the state’s 60-day regular legislative session.
Watch or listen to new episodes Monday through Friday at 6 p.m. on West Virginia Public Broadcasting.
A bill under discussion in the West Virginia House of Delegates would allow teachers to carry guns on school property if they complete a state-mandated training.
Teachers could soon be authorized to carry firearms in West Virginia classrooms, provided that they complete state-mandated training.
The House Judiciary Committee reviewed House Bill 4299 on Wednesday. The bill would create a position in schools known as a school protection officer.
The position would be a secondary role available to any school administrator, support personnel or elementary or secondary school teacher. These individuals would have to complete security and firearm safety training and could then receive authorization to bring a gun to school.
The bill received majority support from committee members, but only after more than an hour of impassioned debate.
Proponents of the bill said it would provide immediate support to school staff when students face the risk of an active shooter.
Under the bill, “we won’t have teachers, as in one instance, laying her body over top of her students,” said Del. Laura Kimble, R-Harrison, who sponsored the bill.
“Instead, she will have something to defend herself,” she said. “That’s why I’m a sponsor of this bill.”
Kimble also said it reaffirmed the state’s concealed carry law, which allows residents over age 21 to carry a firearm in public without a license.
Currently, West Virginia residents including teachers are prohibited from bringing guns onto school property, regardless of whether they have a permit for it.
Under the bill, teachers would be required to keep their firearm within their “personal control while that firearm or device is on school property.”
Critics of the bill, however, expressed doubts that increasing the number of guns in West Virginia schools would reduce gun-related injuries or deaths.
Del. Evan Hansen, D-Monongalia, noted that the bill would create a new armed position in addition to other armed roles like prevention resource officers and school resource officers.
He added that another pending bill, House Bill 4851, would allow school security officers to carry firearms on school property.
“So, there’ll be four different types of people with guns in the schools?” he asked.
Del. Shawn Fluharty, D-Ohio, expressed concern over a potential limit on training for school protection officers in the bill. The text of the bill states that school protection officers must complete “initial instruction and training that shall not exceed 24 hours.”
Also during the meeting, Del. Geoff Foster, R-Putnam, proposed an amendment to the bill that would have required school districts to designate an eligible school employee to serve as a school protection officer.
Counsel and committee members expressed concern that this would contradict the voluntary nature of the position, as established under the bill. Ultimately, Foster withdrew his amendment.
After extensive debate, a majority of committee members voted in favor of the bill, sending it to the House floor with the recommendation that it pass.
Keith Zullig is a researcher and professor at the West Virginia University School of Public Health, Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences. Education reporter Liz McCormick sat down with Zullig to talk about the impacts that school shootings have on our children – and what we can do to help them feel safe.
In this year alone, there have been 27 school shootings in the United States, according to Education Week. Last year, there were 34, which is the highest number of school shootings in a year since Education Week began its tracker in 2018.
During those four years, there have been no school shootings in West Virginia, according to Education Week.
Keith Zullig is a researcher and professor at the West Virginia University School of Public Health, Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences. Education reporter Liz McCormick sat down with Zullig to talk about the impacts that school shootings have on our children – and what we can do to help them feel safe.
Listen to the extended version of this interview to hear more of the conversation.
Listen to the extended conversation with WVU Researcher Keith Zullig
The transcript below is from the original broadcast. It has been lightly edited for clarity.
McCormick: I understand you have been investigating behavior change as a critical component in mitigating gun violence in U.S. schools. Tell us more about your research and how it relates to this recent tragedy in Texas.
Zullig: Thank you. I’m very interested in kids’ satisfaction with their schooling experiences and the climate of a school: the overall learning environment, how students treat one another, [and] how students feel about their interactions with their teachers.
What I’ve come to understand is that from a general standpoint, an outstanding school climate has a protective effect for lots of things. It can even blunt some of the negative effects of poverty that students may experience or some outside effects of the environments where they live.
So obviously, this has impacts in terms of how kids feel in school, in terms of a great environment for learning.
McCormick: What do you see in your research specifically in West Virginia? What sort of feeling do you get in terms of how our students feel? Do they feel safe in our West Virginia schools?
Zullig: I can’t say specifically how all students are feeling. But I do know that there are ripple effects from each of these shootings that, as a parent of a nine year old, just asking questions. So the day after the [Uvalde] shooting, for example, my wife and I had to sit our son down and just kind of process some of this with him to help him understand why they do some of the things they do at their school, in terms of active shooting drills.
[The drills] are pretty common across the country. Over 90 percent of schools have active shooting drills. Whether they’re evidence-based or not is another issue, but most schools do practice some form of intruder training.
McCormick: As a parent, what went through your mind when the shooting happened two weeks ago? You mentioned you have a nine year old, and many of the students who died in Texas were nine and 10 years old. How did you feel as a father?
Zullig: Well, there’s really no making sense of this kind of loss. But I can say you can’t be there for your children until you process your own feelings first. So calling a friend, talking to your partner, those things are really important for you to process.
Once you do that, you can remind your children of all the good people in the community, and in their school specifically, who is there to help protect them. You can review safety plans they may have covered in school, and at the same time, be attentive to really try to avoid any stigmatizing language around mental health.
The other part is to really listen to your children. Let them talk about the fears they may have. Creating a psychologically safe environment for your children to express their feelings is where they can truly be heard and reassured.
McCormick: That’s interesting. So being there for them, letting them talk it out with you helps them process all the feelings they might be going through.
Zullig: Yeah, and I think you have to process it yourself, though first, so you can actually be present for your children.
McCormick: Keith, you have described school shootings in the U.S. as a “persistent public health crisis” if left unaddressed. Can you talk more about what you mean by that?
Zullig: Yeah, of course. So let’s just say mass shootings, they really affect us all and can trigger Post Traumatic Stress Disorder amongst those directly exposed, and children are even more vulnerable than adults to any of these types of tragedies.
What I fear is the general threat of a school shooting, and the damage that it can have on mental health. So, for example, think about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Safety and security are really fundamental to a child’s psychological development. So any sense of danger that children may perceive can disrupt that security and have long term consequences, not only from things like mood disorders, but also educational and economic trajectories long term.
McCormick: What happened in Uvalde, Texas and Newtown, Connecticut in 2012, to our children in the Mountain State, may seem far away. But what would you tell them?
Zullig: Yeah, it seems like they could be quite disparate, because we’re not necessarily there. But I can certainly say that there are ripple effects from these shootings. And I think it’s really important to remind folks that for every deadly shooting, there are many more acts of violence at schools that are less fatal, and therefore less publicized every year.
So estimates suggest there’s about 50,000 or so students every year that are directly exposed to gun violence at school in the United States. These children are deeply affected by what they endure. And the younger the kids are, the harder it is to recover. So if you want to contextualize this a little bit more, I want you to think about, in addition to these 50,000 or so students directly exposed to gun violence at school, estimates suggest that another four to eight million, in a normal year, go through a lockdown.
Lockdowns result because of a threat of a gun. So, if you think about this even more, out of about 42 million adolescents in this country – anywhere between 10 and 20 percent of our kids are impacted by lockdowns every year.
So that’s really eye popping, when you kind of look at the totality of the impact, whether it’s just from lockdowns, or the less publicized offense in terms of gun violence, or the direct shootings, it’s quite large.
McCormick: What are your biggest recommendations to help mitigate school shooting incidents in the future?
Zullig: What I think would be a logical first step that I think a lot of us can get around is, we currently have a federal law on the books that you cannot buy a handgun until you’re 21 years of age. We’ve done that with handguns. It’s established. Why can’t we do the same thing with buying a rifle and increase the age from 18 to 21, to match that of a handgun? That would remove some of the access issues amongst a particularly vulnerable age group.
You have to remember that people’s brains are not developed until their mid 20s. A lot of times, emotional issues that young people may feel, are at a time when they have access to weapons, and that is just a lethal mix.
School officials in north-central West Virginia are working to make school buildings safer before classes begin this fall.
Officials said the moves are meant to keep out intruders and come on the heels of school shootings around the nation.
Harrison County Safety Director Ken Winkie told The Exponent-Telegram that improvements there include installing shatter-resistant glass on the first-floor windows of many buildings and upgrading security cameras. He said entrances to schools also are being converted to make them safer and crews are working on a silent alarm system for emergencies.
Marion County Superintendent Gary Price said officials there invested $1 million over the summer to upgrade security cameras.
Barbour County Superintendent Jeff Woofter said officials there continue to work with a software company that helps schools with security.
