OHIO — Gov. Mike DeWine announced more than 1,000 K-12 schools across the state will receive state assistance to pay for security upgrades.
DeWine made the announcement at the Ohio School Safety Summit in Columbus on Tuesday.
He said 1,183 schools in 81 counties will receive nearly $47 million in grant funding from the Ohio K-12 School Safety Grant Program. The schools will receive grants equal to the amount they requested up to $50,000.
The funds will go toward physical security improvements such as security cameras, public address systems, automatic door locks, visitor badging systems and exterior lighting.
“With the start of the new school year quickly approaching, we want students, staff and parents to know that we care about school safety, and we’re working every day to make sure that rural, urban, and suburban schools alike have the safety and security resources they need,” said DeWine in a news release. “Helping schools pay for important security improvements is just one component of our comprehensive school safety approach that also supports the mental wellbeing of our kids and the work of local law enforcement to prevent crime.”
The grant program launched in 2021 with an appropriation of $5 million in Senate Bill 310 of the 133rd General Assembly. In May, 98 schools in 27 counties received funds equalling up to $4.8 million. DeWine and the legislature partnered this year and increased the grant program by $100 million using support from the American Rescue Plan Act.
The schools selected applied earlier but did not receive funds as part of the initial $5 million in grant awards.
In the coming weeks, the Ohio School Safety Center, partnering with the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission, will accept applications for the $53 million in funds remaining in the grgant program. Schools who have not applied for funding, or were ineligible in previous rounds, will have first priority.
DeWine announced Mary Davis, former executive director of the Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy, will serve as the chief training officer overseeing the new Safety & Crisis Division created by the Ohio School Safety Center.
Dewine signed House Bill 99 into effect in June which created the Safety & Crisis Division to develop and provide training for school staff members whose districts allow certain employees to be armed on school grounds.
The bill received mixed reactions with some city school districts passing resolutions to not arm teachers. The bill allows staff to be armed only if they have had 24 hours of initial training, eight additional training hours annually and passed a background check through the Department of Public Safety. Other schools are utilizing HB 99, allowing their staff to be armed.
Schools were able to decide whether their district would opt in or out of the HB 99 bill.
