CLEVELAND — The mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas has school officials and parents in Ohio on high alert.
What You Need To Know
- For Ohioan Ken Trump, school safety has become his mission
- Trump is the president of National School Safety and Security Services
- He has several pieces of advice schools can use right now to keep children safe
Ken Trump’s phones have been ringing since the second-largest school shooting in U.S. history.
“After more than 30 years in this field, it’s a real punch in the gut to have any school shooting and it’s exceptionally difficult when we talk about the youngest of the young children that are involved,” said Trump.
National School Safety and Security Services handles security assessments, emergency planning reviews, tabletop exercises, training and expert witness work for schools.
As someone who advises schools across the country on how to protect students, he said schools right now can take steps to ensure better safety.
Steps include building relationships with kids so they’re comfortable reporting any suspicious behavior, as well as actively supervising students and being trained to report concerning behavior.
“We need to not only see something and say something, but train people to do something and how to do something once they become aware,” said Trump.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine recently announced $4.8 million in security upgrades for 98 schools in the state. DeWine’s office said the funding could go to security cameras, public address systems, automatic door locks and visitor badging systems.
Trump said while physical security upgrades are important, it is absolutely necessary for staff to be trained on what to do in the situations. He said sometimes, red flags were known and not acted upon, but in many cases, the red flags of a potential shooter were not reported and learned about until after it was too late.
“It’s great if we finally get people to the point where they report, but it’s not going to do any good if we have not trained our school officials and other first responders in threat assessment, threat response and threat management so that they know what to do once they get that information,” said Trump.
Trump also said that the discussions over issues like guns and school safety need to be had, but he’s also concerned with how polarizing the politics behind the issues have become.
