Highland Local Schools awarded $500,000 from Ohio's K-12 School Safety Grant Program

GRANGER TWP. — Highland Local Schools was recently awarded $500,000 in funding from the fourth round of the state's K-12 School Safety Grant Program to enhance physical safety measures in its schools. Each school in the district received $100,000 in funding. Highland Superintendent Catherine Aukerman said the district worked with the Medina County Sheriff's Office and Hinckley Police Department to complete a comprehensive school safety and security vulnerability assessment in October. "Through that process we identified areas that we wanted to target for additional protections," she said. "We will use this money to further invest in security practices that we identified and by working with law enforcement partners (on) making informed decisions on these security investments." Highland's grant funding will go toward the following targeted areas: Physical access controls Perimeter security Video surveillance Emergency communication Threat detection Lighting "Our community wants our schools to be the safest they can be," she said. "Each additional layer provides greater protection for the students and staff in our schools." The district has other safety measures in place such as having law enforcement in each school every day, Aukerman said. Staff members are also trained on school security, preventing youth suicide and violence awareness. "We have safe and secure buildings, but any opportunity to increase safety measures, we want to take advantage of that," she said. "These dollars will allow us to make those upgrades and enhancements that we identified." Buckeye Schools' primary school was also awarded more than $50,000 in grant funding as part of the fourth round as well. Buckeye Superintendent Jeff Harrison did not respond to requests for comment as of Friday evening. According to a news release from Gov. Mike DeWine's office, 945 schools throughout the state received $68 million in funding as part of the program's fourth round. There will be a fifth round coming soon. "We really do appreciate that the state of Ohio made these funds available for this purpose and these safety enhancements," Aukerman said. Contact reporter Madisyn Woodring at (330) 721-4049 or mwoodring@medina-gazette.com.