COLUMBUS — Gov. Mike DeWine on Wednesday signed an executive order to create a special government entity focused on school security.
The new Ohio School Safety Center within the Department of Public Safety will analyze and help respond to threats, help schools prepare, provide technical assistance and training to school personnel, and host annual summits to share information.
It will also include a working group of experts in safety, education, mental health, emergency management, and other fields to discuss security issues, trends, and local needs. The center will issue an annual report to the governor.
“Certainly, schools should be a [safe] haven for children to learn without fear,” Mr. DeWine said. “I believe the Ohio School Safety Center is a step toward improving security for all of our kids in school in the state of Ohio today.”
The announcement follows the governor’s rollout earlier this month of more than a dozen proposals in the wake of the Dayton and El Paso mass shootings.
Early in the morning of Aug. 4, a 24-year-old man opened fire in a Dayton nightlife neighborhood, killing nine people, including his sister. The gunman was swiftly killed by police.
It occurred just hours after 22 were killed by a shooter who targeted customers of an El Paso Walmart located near the border with Mexico.
Among the governor’s previous proposals were calls for legislation that would allow family and law enforcement to petition courts to remove guns from individuals considered a danger to themselves or others and an expansion of background checks for gun sales.
Bills have been introduced in both chambers, but the governor’s office has yet to unveil its proposed legislative language. Lawmakers have been on summer recess since the shootings earlier this month.
The governor also promoted Ohio’s school safety tip line, 844-723-3764, through which threats or concerns about school violence may be reported.
After the 2012 shootings at Chardon High School near Cleveland, Mr. DeWine, then attorney general, forced K-12 schools to update their emergency safety plans, and the state appropriated grants to help schools pay for security upgrades.
“If you look back about a decade ago, there was not a real focus on school plans,” Mr. DeWine said. “They were done in many cases haphazardly. Sometimes they weren’t done at all. Schools really understand today what they face. We’ve seen tragedies in Ohio and in some other states. ... We’ve come a long way.”
The state’s latest two-year budget also includes additional funds for counseling, medication, mental health, and other “wraparound” services for students that are not directly related to classroom instruction.
Mr. DeWine said he does not plan to tell schools what to do, including whether they should hire armed school resource officers or allow teachers or other school personnel to arm themselves.
If a school allows personnel to carry firearms, they should be properly trained, he said. Such training is not currently mandated.
“I’m a big fan of school resource officers,” Mr. DeWine said. “... What you get is a trained officer. You get someone who can be very helpful and a presence in a school as a deterrent. But the other thing that you get is a relationship that is built between that officer and the students and a trust that can pay dividends immediately.”
Scott DiMauro, president of the Ohio Education Association, said the teachers union welcomes any effort to keep schools safe.
“We are especially encouraged by the continued focus on the mental health needs of students,” he said. “That was a priority in the budget with wraparound services to invest in social workers, counselors, and mental health specialists in schools.”
OEA supports the hiring of well-trained, professional school resource officers.
“We don’t support arming teachers, but we do think it’s an appropriate, positive step that the governor called for increasing training requirements,” Mr. DiMauro said.
First Published August 21, 2019, 2:54 p.m.
