Story highlights Ohio sheriff offers free gun class for teachers

300 teachers and school employees sign up for training

(CNN) Hundreds of teachers and school employees in an Ohio county have signed up for a concealed weapons class their sheriff offered in response to last week's deadly shooting at a Parkland, Florida, high school.

Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones announced the free training on social media on Sunday evening and said there were 50 requests in 20 minutes.

Attention Butler County School Employees: If you're interested in our FREE CCW class, email your full name, school affiliate, and contact information to ccwclass@butlersheriff.org. Accepting 50 candidates. We will contact you for date / time of class. — Richard K. Jones (@butlersheriff) February 19, 2018

He closed sign-ups on Tuesday morning after receiving 300 requests.

In a video posted the day after a gunman killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School , Jones called for armed guards at schools.

He also questioned the need for fire drills at schools and said he was concerned copycat gunmen could use the alarms to trick teachers and students into leaving the relative safety of their classrooms.

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