LAKEWOOD, Ohio (WJW) – Governor DeWine will be in Northeast Ohio Thursday to talk about school safety. He is expected to announce the latest round of school safety grants and how his budget proposal will help schools statewide get resource officers.

Governor DeWine will visit Lakewood High School tomorrow morning. It is the second day of his “budget tour” to promote his priorities and initiatives that he outlined in his budget proposal during his State of the State address.

We caught up with members of the junior varsity girls basketball team at Independence High School focusing on their talents during practice Wednesday. 

Off the court, the players and their other classmates focus on things like homework and term papers.

“One of the things families never used to worry about was the safety of their children at school. Today, sadly, they do,” said DeWine.

Tuesday, during his State of the State address, DeWine discussed how his proposed budget will improve safety in Ohio schools.

“Some school officials have told me that they would like to place a school resource officer in their school, but simply cannot afford to do so,” DeWine said.

“We received over $280,000 that the Independence Local Schools will be using for video surveillance and safety, so this is another round. We’ll be applying for safety and security as well,” said superintendent Ben Hegedish.

Hegedish says the district has already received funds from an earlier round of grant money for safety areas, door upgrades and other safety measures. But they could always use more.

“For continued software and camera upgrades, so our whole process is going to be more than what we received and we’ve committed to that work already. We also could use that toward school resource salaries as well,” said Hegedish.

“They are looking at the round three applications and schools that did not receive funds from that round and we did not. We applied for $1.3 million worth of equipment and our understanding is that we’ll have a decision by Friday,” said Dr. Steve Thompson, chief operating officer for Akron Public Schools.

In December, Akron Public Schools approved $1.7 million for metal detectors and X-ray machines, but Dr. Thompson says the district plans to add even more safety measures.

“They’re all costly, so again, any help we can get from the state will be very welcome,” Dr. Thompson said.

According to the governor’s office, DeWine will announce the names of the schools getting the awards. The funds were approved last month. $112 million will be awarded in two rounds, with the first round being announced Thursday.

That is on top of the $105 million already awarded to many schools last year.