DeWine: Submit safety plans

Assoicated Press

COLUMBUS

Attorney General Mike DeWine says about 150 schools around Ohio have not filed their floor plans or safety plans with his office as required by state law.

Schools are required to file those plans with DeWine’s office and update them at least every three years, making them accessible to law enforcement. DeWine urged schools to ensure their floor plans and safety plans are up to date in the wake of the Chardon High School shooting that killed three students in February.

He says 1,030 buildings in 109 districts have submitted or updated plans since then, including 320 that submitted plans for the first time.

“We hope that we will never experience school violence, and we must do all we can to prevent it,” DeWine said. “Having these plans in place and ready to be accessed by local law enforcement is an important part of our efforts to protect children.”

His department reports 151 of Ohio’s more than 4,350 school facilities, or about 3.5 percent, have yet to properly file plans. They are scattered across the state and include four in Trumbull County.

During a school-safety summit this week, DeWine encouraged schools not only to submit their plans but to make sure they’re clear and effective. He said some schools complied with the law but filed plans that are too short or too complicated and detailed to significantly help authorities in an urgent situation.

DeWine said Chardon High School had filed its safety plan and followed through with it after the shooting that killed three students and wounded three more at the school east of Cleveland.

A police report showed more than 30 officers from around the area and crews from four fire departments responded to the scene.

Officer Matt DeLisa, a 19-year Chardon Police Department veteran who was among the first on the scene, later said he believes a school shooting drill held at the site two years earlier benefited officers responding to the actual emergency because they knew what to do as they cleared the site, room by room.

The teenage suspect, T.J. Lane, has pleaded not guilty.