How Ohio lawmakers want to make schools safer
'Anything that we can do to prevent a tragedy from happening, we need to be able to do so,' Ohio Rep. Melanie Miller (R-Ashland) said.
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Miller is one of the sponsors of House Bill 106, known as the SoS or 'Securing our Schools' Act. The bill would create a pilot $12 million grant program for public and chartered nonpublic schools to purchase panic alert systems or contract for artificial intelligence firearm detection software.
'I think these are some of the next steps,' Miller said. 'Unfortunately, with our society, we've seen active shooters throughout the country, and we wanted to be able to do something.'
The bill has stipulations attached. For example, a school that has an existing system in place cannot apply for the grant to buy a new one, and the panic or AI system must also be made in the United States.
'We want to make sure that privacy data is protected as well in our schools,' Miller said. 'So, it's important we provide those guardrails in this new digital age.'
Miller said the bill aims to help 'aging facilities' in the state. The panic system would also need to be able to initiate campus-wide lockdown notifications and transmit calls to 911.
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'If there was an emergency, an active shooter or even a health emergency, [law enforcement] knows exactly the GPS location,' she said. 'They can get medical attention to that student or, in the event there is someone that escaped out of jail who might be a sex offender, or someone might have been spotted with a gun.'
Right now, the bill has a $12 million dollar price tag to help some of those schools pay for the systems. When it was first introduced, that number was $25 million.
'We thought if we, maybe, cut that in half, that might start the conversation,' Miller said.
But the money may be a nonstarter. Lawmakers are also working on a $60 billion state budget right now, and though this was pitched as a contender in that bill, it ultimately did not make it in the House version.
'We've obviously had a four-month process looking at budget requests,' Ohio House Finance Committee Chairperson Rep. Brian Stewart (R-Ashville) said. 'That's not something we were able to include in the budget that the House passed. We'll see what the Senate does with it.'
Stewart said he is happy to discuss the bill in his committee, even though it has money attached to it.
'But I don't expect that we'll see a lot of bills passed that directly conflict with the House version of the budget in terms of the amount of money,' he said. 'Through the process, maybe as time goes on, revenue estimates change, maybe we can revisit some of those funding items.'
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Miller said even if the policy passes without the money, it will be a step in the right direction to ensure that the AI and panic devices are made in the U.S. and suitable for Ohio's schools; she remains hopeful something will get through.
'There are a lot of things that we can do to prevent something from happening,' Miller said. 'So if we can get ahead of that instead of reacting, I think this is a really important part of the conversation.'
The bill is set to have opponent and proponent testimony in the coming weeks.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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