SB 253 Summary

• Authorizes school boards to adopt policies allowing expulsion of students for up to one year for communicating threats to kill or harm persons or property on school grounds, if the student engaged in substantial steps toward carrying out the threat as determined by the superintendent in consultation with law enforcement.

• Requires school superintendents and chartered nonpublic school administrators to report all threats of violence made by students to the Ohio school safety center, regardless of whether disciplinary action is taken, subject to privacy law restrictions.

• Establishes the Ohio school safety center within the department of public safety's division of homeland security to develop mechanisms for schools to report student threats of violence.

• Requires school districts and chartered nonpublic schools to post the SaferOH tip line phone number prominently in buildings and on websites.

• Applies threat-related expulsion provisions to all students on school property, school buses, at school-sponsored events, and interscholastic activities, whether or not the student is enrolled in the district.