Safe Schools Summit provides educators with ideas, resources to enhance student safety

Now, in its seventh year, the summit alternates annually between Butte and other cities (including Helena in 2023 and Billings in 2025), in hopes of spreading school safety awareness statewide.

"One of our goals with all of our workshops is to give our participants something that they can then take back to their communities that they can then implement," said Raymond Rogers of the Jeremy Bullock Memorial Trust. "We want this to be very actionable. We don't just want them to come here and sit and listen to speakers. We want them to come here and get materials that can be very useful that they can then bring back to their schools or their communities and implement to keep their schools and their kids safer."

The summit is named in honor of Butte native Jeremy Bullock, who was shot and killed by a classmate on the playground of Margaret Leary Elementary School at age 11 in 1994. However, Bullock's death remains the last fatal school shooting in the state of Montana 32 years later, thanks in large part to efforts like the Safe Schools Summit.

Enhancing the summit's message is a national perspective provided by keynote speakers, many of whom have been through the same sort of tragedy as the Bullock family.

"Whether it's folks that come in from Columbine, or from Sandy Hook Promise, it's amazing to have those folks here because they get it, fundamentally, because they've suffered that tragedy," Rogers said. "It's this shared commitment, not just in this community or in this state but nationally, to keep our kids safe. We want everybody to go home at the end of the day to their loved ones. That's an important mission."

In addition to the summit, the Jeremy Bullock Memorial Trust helped raise $40,000 worth of safety improvements to be implemented at Butte High School.

Though a location for the summit in 2027 has yet to be determined, Rogers says that a new city in Western Montana is the target to be the host.