UB hosted school safety summit minutes after Maryland school shooting

The University at Buffalo hosted its 15th annual Safe Schools Initiative Seminar. 

More than 1,500 people attended the event inside UB’s Center for Arts. 

Two national school safety leaders, Michele Gay and Mo Canady, presented at this year’s summit. 

Michele Gay is a former teacher and mother of a student killed in the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012. Gay’s organization Safe And Sound Schools is pushing for more support for school safety on the local, state, and federal levels. 

“We are not going to be able to prevent every single tragedy or crisis in a school community. But that doesn’t mean we are not going to stop trying,” Gay said. 

According to a Northeastern University Journal schools are more safer now than in the 90s. Mo Canady with the National Association of School Resource Officers said the key to keeping schools safe is placing more trained resource officers in the building. 

“if SRO(School Resource Officers) are put in that position in every school, there might not be a need for teachers to be armed,” Canady said. 

Both Gay and Canady believe teachers and students should be trained on how to handle active shootings and even bombs. They moth might have a slightly different perspective on accomplishing school safety, but agree everyone must work together to make a difference. 

“We can’t stop. We can’t stop this effort. We have to continue. We have to work harder. We have to dig deeper,” Gay said. 

This school safety event happened just minutes after a high school shooting in Maryland. A 17-year old male shot and injured both a 16-year old boy and a 14-year old girl. Reportedly the shooter died during a shoot out with the school resource officer.

This is the 17th school shooting across the nation since January 1st.