Dr. Martin Ringstaff, director of Cleveland City SchoolsCLEVELAND, Tenn. – Cleveland City Schools will not tolerate firearms on school grounds, with the exception of law officers.
In a 7-0 vote, the Cleveland Board of Education recently passed a measure limiting firearms to each campus’ school resource officer, who is provided by Cleveland police. The resolution received a clear endorsement from Dr. Martin Ringstaff, director of the city school system.
“There’s lots of discussions about teachers carrying weapons — I’ve been a little outspoken on that and will continue to be, and I know our board feels the same way,” Ringstaff said. “We don’t think that’s a great idea that anybody besides the school resource officer carry a weapon in the school.”
In January, several board members said they doubted that training a teacher to carry and use firearms in a school could surpass the training and experience of the police officers assigned to resource officer duty.
All city school resource officers have at least five years of experience, and many have served for more than 10 years, police Chief Wes Snyder said. All of the officers had crisis handling and hostage negotiation training, he said.