Concerns about school safety in Michigan have reshaped how districts prepare for emergencies, from adopting new technologies to standardizing the language used during threats.
The focus on security intensified after the shooting at Oxford High School in November of 2021, when a student opened fire, killing four other students and injuring six others. In the days, months and years that followed, safeguarding school buildings became a priority for many districts.
“I think Oxford was a catalyst,” said Tom Mynsberge, the president and founder of Critical Incident Management. “It’s kind of like it brought to reality here in Michigan, not far from anybody, of what can actually happen and what the proper response that we should look at should happen.”
Mynsberge, a retired Michigan State Police employee who now trains schools, said his work has included emergency procedures ranging from lockdowns to bomb threats and hazardous materials. “We pretty much defined lockdowns, securing against threats, how to respond to bomb threats, and also for hazardous materials,” he said.
A key change now rolling out statewide is consistent emergency terminology, backed by legislation signed into law in 2024. Mynsberge said the goal is to ensure schools and first responders use the same terms and understand what each response mode means.
“The new legislation basically puts terminology all the same throughout the state for training and responders so they know what each different mode actually responds to,” he said.
“If I’m a staff member and I go from one school district to another school district, it’s the same language. If I’m a student and I go from one school district to another, they’re speaking the same language in an emergency situation. And that’s very, very critical,” says Kim Root, who manages the Office of School Safety for Michigan State Police.
Root said the past five years have brought a push for consistency and collaboration among schools, law enforcement and emergency management.
“I’ve seen a big push towards schools, law enforcement, and emergency management; we’re really collaborating to make sure that we have consistent approaches, to make sure that those smaller things that we can address, whether they be doors that are locked and consistently locked, that’s just, it’s the small things that we can do to create a culture of safety across all entities,” Root said.
Alongside training and standardized procedures, some districts are turning to technology designed to detect weapons. ZeroEyes, a weapons detection platform, is used in more than 50 school districts across Michigan.
“Zero Eyes is a visual firearm or weapons detection platform,” said Rob Carter, the company’s director of sales. “We integrate with existing security cameras. So as your security cameras are already in place, our software goes over top of those security cameras and essentially ask one question. And that question is, is there a weapon in this image? Yes or no?”
If the system detects a weapon, Carter said the images are sent to one of the company’s operations centers. “Staffed entirely by military and law enforcement veterans,” he said. “And essentially their job from there is to receive those images and make the determination. Is this in fact a lethal firearm or lethal weapon? If yes, they press dispatch.”
Carter said the company has seen weapons and has been able to alert police and schools.
Researchers and prevention experts say technology is only one part of a broader strategy. Dr. Sarah Stillwell, a research investigator with the University of Michigan Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention, said school safety efforts should focus on preventing violence before it happens.
“When we think about school safety, we’re really thinking about a comprehensive approach to early prevention and making sure that we’re not just responding to incidents, but also developing ways that we can prevent incidents from happening in the first place,” Stilwell said.
Stillwell said schools can also empower students through tools such as anonymous reporting systems. “We really take a comprehensive approach towards school safety and violence prevention by empowering students with things like implementing things like a anonymous reporting system,” she said. “So if they see something, a concerning sign in the school, they can report it and make sure that that tip is actually acted on.”
Stillwell said research has shown students often have some of the most valuable information when it comes to safeguarding schools. She said her team recently interviewed former K-12 students from Michigan to learn what they believe would improve safety.
“We recently interviewed former K-12 students from the state of Michigan and asked them about what was it like to be a student in the state of Michigan and what their experiences are about what we can do to improve overall school safety within the state and the ideas that they have are things that we never would have thought of,” Stilwell said. “They’re ultimately the experts around school safety and we can only empower them by listening to their voice and leveraging their experiences and their expertise.”
Using student input, Stilwell said, researchers have been able to develop strategies aimed at stopping violence before it happens.
