SALINA, Kansas - The Kansas Adjutant General's Department and Kansas Department of Education are co-hosting a Kansas Safe and Prepared Schools Conference at the Webster Conference Center, 2601 N. Ohio St., Salina.

Kan. Lt. Gov. Troy Findley opened the conference Monday at noon with Kevin Jennings, assistant secretary of U.S. Department of Education, serving as the keynote speaker.

The conference will host school administrators, board members, teachers, counselors and resource officers who will focus on topics ranging from classroom behavior to natural disasters and possible school violence.

The Kansas Center for Safe and Prepared Schools Center was created in 2009 to provide a central office to coordinate school/safety/preparedness activities.

The center was developed as a result of guidance from the Governor's Commission on Healthy and Prepared Schools.

"Feedback from superintendents across Kansas indicated a need for a coordinated effort and we collaborated with other state agencies to form the center," said Maj. Gen. Tod Bunting, director of Kansas Homeland Security, Emergency Management and adjutant general. "This conference will bring together many key players who will be instrumental in ensuring resources and training are in place for schools to provide a safe and prepared learning environment and to assist them in preventing, preparing and responding to crisis events impacting local schools and communities."

"What is particularly unique about this event is that we're trying to broaden the communication between school officials, first responders and emergency management personnel," said Bob Hull, director, Kansas Center for Safe and Prepared Schools. "School crisis is also community crisis; if it happens to a school, it happens to the community."

Hull, Olathe, has served as the director of the Kansas Center for Safe and Prepared Schools since February 2009. Hull has spent 30 years in the public education system and prior to becoming the director served as a Kansas school superintendent.

State officials note that on any given day 20 percent or more of Kansans are gathered in a school setting, where society and parents expect their children to learn in a safe and prepared environment where school and community officials are prepared to handle unforeseen events.

For more information about the Kansas Center for Safe and Prepared Schools call, 785-274-1428.