School safety bill approved in Ga. Senate

It calls for threat assessments, drills in public schools.

A year after a campus shooting in Florida captured the nation’s attention, the Georgia Senate on Wednesday approved school safety legislation.

Senate Bill 15 would require routine threat assessments and drills in public schools and would mandate coordination between state agencies and local authorities and schools. It also would establish a program for certifying current or former military or public safety personnel as school safety coaches.

The legislation by state Sen. John Albers, R-Roswell, a volunteer firefighter with a son in a Fulton County school, was approved 47-8 and now goes to the House of Representatives, weeks after the anniversary of the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.

The Senate Committee on Public Safety, which Albers heads as chairman, stripped some of the most controversial elements, removing private schools from the mandate and eliminating a requirement that the state “curate individual student profiles” from school records and state agency files. Some saw that as an invasion of privacy and a record that could leak online, following students into adulthood. The committee also eliminated a provision giving safety coaches a property tax break, allowing schools districts to decide whether to pay them.

One senator, Jen Jordan, D-Atlanta, who ultimately voted for the bill, wanted to know why it didn’t address guns directly.

Albers said the legislation addressed safety in general, noting that vehicles in parking lots could also be weaponized.

“This is a much larger issue than any one specific act,” he said. The main focus, he said, was prevention: “identifying a problem before it happens” by encouraging people to report suspicious behavior and encouraging a coordinated reaction.

The legislation wouldn’t mandate curation of student data but still refers to “profiles,” requiring collaboration among “all levels of law enforcement and mental health and social services providers whenever information from student profiles or student behavior warrants.”

The bill also identifies the Georgia Bureau of Investigation as the primary agency for investigating school threats and mandates collaboration with local law enforcement.