Ohio agencies seek to increase safety in schools

With school violence on the rise, Ohio schools are beginning to take charge.

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine recently awarded Ohio schools $12 million in grants to help with safety and security.

Schools received either $5.65 per student or $2,500 per school, whichever was the larger amount. Some schools received amounts staggering into the tens of thousands; Berea City Schools received $33,000.

These grants could go to a multitude of resources, ranging from school resource officers, special training programs, and mental health services.

Another legislative action created to help schools is House Bill 318, which defines qualifications and duties of school resource officers (SROs). This bill passed in August and becomes effective November 2.

A school resource officer is a “career law enforcement officer with sworn authority who is deployed by an employing police department or agency in a community-oriented policing assignment to work in collaboration with one or more schools”, according to the National Association of School Resource Officers. 

(source: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/crimeindicators/ind_S01.asp)

An SRO must have at least 40 hours of specialized training in a school before being assigned to one. 

In the Parma City Schools district, $126,000 was spent on adding police officers to the middle schools. 

“Previously we had two officers in each of our high schools,” Parma City Schools Chief Operating Officer William Greene says. “However, nothing signals safety like a police officer, so we wanted to add that into our middle schools.

SROs cost about $42,000 per position. An officer was added to each middle school.

“We want to get to that point of school resource officers,” Greene says. “The advantages are those officers get to know the kids, they strike up a rapport, and they know who to listen to and who to go to to get critical information for us.” 

Whether a school has an SRO or not most schools have some sort of safety plan in place in case of events like school shootings. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found in 2016 that almost 90 percent of public schools had some sort of written plan in the event that a shooting occurs, while 70 percent of those schools conducted a drill based off of that plan. 

Organizations in Ohio have been created to help formulate plans that can help with school safety and security.

Safer Schools Ohio, or The Center for P-20 Safety and Security, is a collaborative between the Ohio Department of Education and Ohio Homeland Security. The two organizations joined forces for the 2013-2014 school year.

“Very little of [school safety and security funding] comes from our office,” Dustin Fox, the spokesman for Ohio Homeland Security, says. “Grants come from the state level and also the federal level in multiple different ways.”

Instead, Safer Schools Ohio focuses most importantly on its safety plans. 

“The heart of that is the school safety comprehensive emergency plan,” Fox says. “[The plans] encompass emergencies and issues that run the gamut.”

Safer Schools Ohio doesn’t just focus on school violence. It also focuses on natural disasters, such as tornadoes and fires, along with school evaluations and assessments.

Jason Bowman, the School Safety and Critical Infrastructure Manager for the Ohio Division of Homeland Security, oversees safety plans made by Ohio schools and ensures all helpline tips are handled appropriately.

The helpline, 844-SaferOH, is a free anonymous helpline that schools may use to report active aggressors to bullying to even welfare checks.

“It’s really open to anything,” Bowman says. 

For the safety plans, schools must create a plan that encompasses an overview of the site, prevention, protection and mitigation, response, and recovery. 

Schools also have to test their plan. 

“The plan could be great in theory,” Bowman says, “But if you never put it into action you never know if it works or what gaps you might have.”

The law requires schools to work with their first responders to create the plan.

“Additionally, they are required to annually certify these plans,” Bowman says. 

Though schools have to certify their plans each year, the Safer Schools law is on a three-year cycle (the latest update came in December 2017).

“We’re constantly developing new resources for schools on our website,” Bowman says. “One of those resources that we did recently is ‘Lessons Learned Shooter Shooter’ based on lessons learned from school shootings.”

Out of House Bill 318, Safer Schools Ohio also recently conducted a survey given to schools to assess their needs. The survey also questioned which schools had school resource officers. Though the survey was voluntary, it saw a 70 percent return rate.

“Based on that survey we’re going to analyze those results and what’s going on,” Bowman says. “We will make recommendations on legislations to the current and next governor on what is needed.”

Safer Schools Ohio is always developing new ideas to help schools.

“We’re constantly working with agencies on grants to improve security,” Bowman says. “We’re working with schools to ensure school climate.”

Making sure schools have “comprehensive and meaningful” plans is an important part in helping decrease the statistics of school violence. 

With the recent grants and initiatives, it can only be hoped that a sense of safety is fostered in the public schools.