Gov. DeWine hosts summit in effort to enhance school safety

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- The 2023 Ohio School Safety Summit started Tuesday morning with Governor Mike DeWine speaking to hundreds of attendees.

The summit is put on by the Ohio School Safety Center, an office that focuses on enhancing the safety of schools across the state. It’s a way for students, teachers and school administrators to come together under one common goal.

Governor DeWine says that both the Ohio School Safety Center and the summit can connect school districts with necessary resources. “Part of what we are trying to do in our school safety office is giving the tools and the resources that each school needs,” says the governor.

“In doing that we rely on national experts, but we also rely on what teachers tell us, what superintendents and principals tell us, but it’s also important for us to rely on what students are telling us.” To give students a voice, the Ohio School Safety Advisory Council was created.

On Tuesday, council members, who are all Ohio high school students, presented projects to the governor about their ideas to keep kids safe and happy at school.

“I created this poster called the 21 acts of kindness to honor the 21 lives lost in Uvalde,” says council members and Hawken School senior Augusta Halle. “So, we use good deeds to honor the people and the victims of the school shooting to help prevent school shootings.”

Many national and state experts in school safety spoke at the School Safety Summit. Both Governor DeWine and Halle say this summit can help keep students and educators safe if they take these tools back home with them.

“I hope that people are able to take the myriad of messages that are presented at this summit and take that away and implement them in their own communities,” says Halle. “Everyone just needs to have a sense of urgency. Our goal is to give our schools the resources and to give our schools, whether they are public or private, the ability to make their schools just as safe as possible,” says Governor DeWine.

Learn about who is speaking at the summit, the schedule of events and more by clicking here.