Ariz. senate panel OKs school safety hotline

PHOENIX — Hoping to prevent a future school shooting, a Senate panel agreed Tuesday to set up a statewide hotline where students and others can anonymously report dangerous activities and threats.

The idea of the “Safe to Tell” program, according to 14-year-old Ridley Wilson, is to have a central point — and a single phone number or cellphone application — to gather intelligence on what is happening in schools. Wilson, a student at Madison Highland Preparatory Academy in Phoenix, told members of the Senate Appropriations Committee that ensures that otherwise disparate tips are gathered under a single umbrella, giving the agency collecting the data the chance to see patterns before they explode into something else.

“Something needs to be done now,” she testified. “It’s dangerous for kids to be in school.”

Wilson cited the Feb. 14 incident in Parkland where Nicholas Cruz went to his former school and killed 17 people.

“His classmates had reported him to authorities,” she said.

“But reports weren’t pulled together for a full picture of the danger,” Wilson continued. “With Safe to Tell, they would have been compiled and he may have been stopped.”

Tuesday’s unanimous committee approval sends the measure to the Senate Education Committee. It already has cleared the House on a 48-12 vote.

Still to be worked out is how the program will be funded.

As the bill stands now it allocates $400,000 to set it up.