ASHLAND, Ore. – A new local non-profit named The School Safe Zone Solution, is calling on the public to help petition the city of Ashland and its school district to adopt a prevention plan, that would turn classrooms into safe zones in the case of a school shooting.
“We are asking for targeted solutions that guarantee more safety for children and teachers in these events that are designed at preventing loss of life and not responding to the loss of life,” said The School Safe Zone Solution’s Founder, Alex Sol.
Sol said he and his wife started the non-profit after finding that their daughter’s school didn’t have a prevention plan in the case of a school shooter. They have now set out to make every school in the district safer, by securing a campus’s entry points.
“The doors and entry points play a massive role in the high casualty amounts that happen in these shootings and if you can stop that you can now have a plan that reduces the scope of these tragedies,” said Sol.
Sol said they plan to replace glass on outside entry points with bulletproof glass, install bullet-resistant security doors that can lock down classrooms and facilities, and install software that police can use to access school cameras to locate the shooter before officers arrive on scene.
“We’re going to ask the community to petition the Ashland school board to find a way as a community to raise the money to put a bulletproof door in every classroom in Ashland,” said Sol.
The School Safe Zone Solution is hosting an event at the Ashland Springs Hotel to ask for the community’s support.
The event will feature testimonies from school shooting survivors, along with a Q&A with a school shooting educator and concealed handgun instructor, and more.
Sol said he wants to set a high standard of safety with this plan, which can then go on to help other cities outside of Ashland.
“Parents, teachers, and children are all anxious across the board, we are all living with this. We all go to bed wondering, what if this happens? Why not put together a plan that we can all say we have done everything we can do to ensure our kid’s safety,” said Sol.
The free event is this Thursday, July 13th at the Ashland Springs Hotel at 5:30 pm.
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