KENTUCKY-- Kids across the Commonwealth are speaking-out on what they feel should be included in a Student Bill of Rights. After a wave of school threats and shootings across the country, there will be a Student Gun Violence Summit in Washington, D.C., over the weekend for students to draft their own bill of rights. High schoolers in Kentucky have been politically outspoken on how they feel they could be safer inside the classroom, especially after deadly shootings in Parkland, Florida, and in Marshall County, Kentucky. 

• Students in Kentucky talk safety measures, ahead of the Student Gun Violence Summit in Washington, where a Student Bill of Rights will be drafted.
• High schoolers want more mental health specialists and counselors in Kentucky schools. 
• Some students feel there should be stricter gun regulations like longer background checks before purchases, and hope more districts will allow students on decision-making boards and panels.

The threats of school violence continue, and have become almost common across Kentucky. Most recently, on Friday, Kentucky State Police announced 20-year-old Dylan Jarrell was arrested and booked into the Shelby County Detention Center for allegedly mapping a plan of attack on schools in Shelby County and Anderson County. It forced all school activities to shutdown on Friday. 

Even before this, safety issues were on the minds of students like Nasim Mohammadzadeh. The Paul Lauren Dunbar High junior sits on a state committee that's been studying safety issues in schools. 

"I think my mind is a little more focused on the safety portion of school rather than educational portion," Mohammadzadeh admits. "We're going to keep seeing these issues of school safety, if we don't focus on the core, which is mental health and school climate," she adds. 

Many will agree with Mohammadzadeh, there should be more mental health specialists in schools to counsel students so that kids feel cared for and are emotionally safe. While many schools have resource officers, doors on locks, badges for students to wear and even metal detectors in doorways, Henry Clay High School sophomore Emanuelle Sippy believes there should also be more gun control. 

Somerset High School senior Will Powers suggests longer background checks before purchases can be completed, and perhaps a limit to automatic triggers and forms of assault weapons. Powers has been offering his voice on the matter, meeting with politicians in groups. 

"It's not a partisan thing almost, it's a money thing. I can talk to a Democrat or a Republican, but if they both take money from the NRA, are either listening to me?" Powers wonders. 

As for a Student Bill of Rights, which kids from across the country are vying for in Washington on October 20 and 21, Powers suggests, "One is to, for almost every schools maybe at a district level to have a student in the policy-making or decision-making position where they can have their voice input."

"I think student voice is radical, because it's not just kind of 'plan the homecoming dance.' We're talking about real, meaningful decision making," says Emanuelle Sippy.