Latest news with #HouseBill268
Miami Herald
20-05-2025
- Miami Herald
Public schools must step up their safety plans. Georgia Tech provides a model
ATLANTA - Georgia Tech Police Chief Robert Connolly prepares for the worst thing imaginable every single day:a school shooting. In April, a student at Florida State University was charged with killing two people and injuring five others on said he immediately began reviewing the case. "We watch every event that happens in the country," he said. "Obviously, the biggest question is, what did they miss?" After mass killings, schools often install weapon-detection cameras and other tools to help physically protect the campus. But "the meat is prevention," he said. "Putting all those cameras up … that's great," Connolly said. The larger challenge is for schools to identify students who are struggling and provide them assistance. That's something the state is hoping to figure out. After September's deadly shooting at Apalachee High School in Barrow County, Georgia legislators led by House Speaker Jon Burns met with educators, students and parents around the state to come up with a plan to prevent future tragedies. What resulted is House Bill 268, which Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law last month. The legislation requires public schools to identify, assess and mitigate potential threats made by students and to create plans to help students in need to get behavioral health support. But it stops short of implementing restrictions on firearm access as Democrats had hoped. During hearings, several parents said they supported the intention but were concerned about how such a system would operate. Georgia Tech's program could provide a blueprint for K-12 schools. Determining a credible threat Inside the command room of Georgia Tech's police department in Midtown, large screens display a snapshot of the community, with 5,000 cameras ready to zoom in on any given location. One monitor shows updates from LiveSafe, which connects to an app students have on their phone. Through the app, they can snap a photo or report a tip and in moments, a 24/7 team will review the submission. The state's new law requires schools to utilize an app or other digital platform so students and families can anonymously report dangerous and potentially harmful activity impacting students or school staff. But during debate, several parents and lawmakers worried that the platform, by nature of its anonymity, could be abused by studentsmaking false reports about each other. State Rep. Phil Olaleye, D-Atlanta, had requested to change the language in the bill from anonymous reporting to private reporting. "I do see value in transparency on who is bringing (claims) forward," he said in March. "My concern is around false reporting and not creating an incentive to falsely report claims." In those cases, Connolly said there would be some accountability for people who put others' reputation at risk for personal vendettas. But, he said, it's unlikely for a false report to make it that far in the first place because his digital intelligence team has a rigorous process to determine the credibility of threats based on national standards. For example, there are protocols to follow if a student says, "I'm going to kill my teacher if she doesn't give me an extension on this assignment," or "Finals are killing me. I'm at the end of my rope, and I can't do this anymore." According to a violence risk assessment sheet that Georgia Tech uses, there are escalating and mitigating factors that could increase or minimize the perceived risk. If the student has shared specific details about the type of weapon they would use or a plan to carry it out, that would heighten the risk. However, if the threat is the context of political speech during class or if authors are non-native English speakers who may not realize what they are saying, that would lower the risk. Flynn Nauta, a digital intelligence analyst on the team, ticked off a list of questions she would review. "Are they saying a specific classroom or a specific building, or are they just saying, I'm gonna blow up the school? Have they had any past instances where they've had indicators that they were going to do something like this, or any mental health issues?" she said. "Are they targeting a specific individual or a specific building? Are they saying, I'm going to do it at this specific time, on this specific day, or is it just kind of up in the air?" The checklist can "take down those really high emotions and bring us back to whatever the reality of the situation is, or on the opposite side of that, bring it up to the level that it needs to be on," said Megan Kopf, another analyst on the team. Getting on - and off - a list During debate on the legislation, many parents and lawmakers also worried about the long-term impacts of a child ending up on some kind of list or database. They feared it may affect their child's chances of getting into college or be used for nefarious purposes. Georgia Tech does maintain a list of individuals they are concerned about, but viewership is extremely restrictive. "They have to meet a certain threshold to make it to that point. We don't just add anyone; we're very selective about who goes into that software. And that is a collective decision," Nauta said. As part of negotiations on the legislation, parents and students will have the ability to petition for their removal from the system. At Georgia Tech,Connolly saidthere is a five-year retention period that may be shorter based on the student's conduct and behavior. He said it's necessary for public safety. "It goes back to that privacy issue. People feel entitled to expunge everything but unfortunately, how would we ever protect others if you can just erase yourself?" he said. Building trust To make this kind of a program work, the community has to trust the police department. Connolly admits that has been hard since at least 2014, when a police officer fatally shot Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, sparking debates and protests about the role of law enforcement and race. Members of the Georgia Tech's digital intelligence team said they are not sworn police officers, and their focus is not on punishment but rather getting students help. "It is mainly to figure out intervention strategies for the individual," Nauta said. "How can we best help this student? Is it contacting their parents? Is it connecting them with the mental health resources on campus? Is it bringing them in to talk to them?" Connolly said he doesn't see arresting students as a primary response to be particularly useful anyway. "You're in a compassionate world in higher education. What we're going to do is get them help to try to alleviate the problem because giving them more pressure, giving them sanctions, that's not going to help the issue. It's only going to activate the whole thing," he said. Connolly applauded the state for implementing similar systems in K-12 schools, but cautioned to give it space to work. "It's going to take time. This legislation is really just going to start something that's going to take a long time to build," he said. Copyright (C) 2025, Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Portions copyrighted by the respective providers.
American Military News
04-05-2025
- Politics
- American Military News
Georgia Gov. Kemp signs school safety bill inspired by Apalachee shooting
Emotions were raw among family members and classmates of those fatally shot last September at Apalachee High as they gathered at the Georgia Capitol on Monday. But witnessing the signing of a bill they say could prevent future shootings gave them strength. Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law House Bill 268, a wide-ranging piece of legislation requiring public schools to identify, assess and mitigate potential threats made by students and create plans to help students in need to get behavioral health support. It went into effect with Kemp's signature. 'Ensuring the safety of all those in our schools is and will always be a top priority,' Kemp said before signing the bill. The Republican governor also signed several other education-related bills, including one to further support charter schools and another that would ban transgender girls from playing on female sports teams in high school. House Bill 268, sponsored by state Rep. Holt Persinger, R-Winder, was amended during the legislative process to include language from three Senate bills that aimed to address school safety. The changes require local school systems to implement a panic alert system that connects directly to emergency services. The parents who inspired part of that bill, Ilan and Lori Alhadeff, attended the bill signing ceremony. Their daughter, Alyssa, was killed during the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. The parents of Ricky Aspinwall, a teacher who died during the Apalachee shooting in Barrow County, flanked the governor as well. 'It always hurts, but this is part of the healing process,' said Richard Aspinwall. 'I don't want this to happen to anybody else. It has got to stop.' Changes to the bill also require schools to quickly communicate about disciplinary problems with students transferring in from other schools and allow juveniles to be tried as adults for terroristic acts as well as for the charge of conspiracy to commit a number of violent crimes. The teenager charged with killing four people and injuring others in the Apalachee shooting, then 14-year-old Colt Gray, entered a not guilty plea, according to court records. He was indicted on 55 charges, including four counts of felony murder in the deaths of Aspinwall, teacher Cristina Irimie and two 14-year-old students, Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo. The school safety legislation has been a priority of House Speaker Jon Burns, who conducted a series of meetings with educators, parents and students throughout the state about what schools needed to make them safer. 'I'm confident that the policy and resources established by House Bill 268 will save lives of some that we will never even know we saved, by providing resources for students when they need them,' Burns said Monday. Under the bill, the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency is responsible for discerning what constitutes a credible threat. The agency is also provide training to schools to help develop and implement those plans. Names of the students who made threats would be included in the system, if the threat had been investigated and verified by local law enforcement and if the student had been evaluated by a social worker. During hearings on the bill, parents of Black and Muslim boys said their children could be unfairly targeted if their remarks were perceived as more threatening than intended. Lawmakers clarified that parents or students can petition for their removal from the system. Information will only be available to designated people, which could include teachers, principals, school counselors and school resource officers. Each school determines whether to forward that information to law enforcement, which would only be informed of certain students based on the type of threat. 'The potential for abuse is arguably always there,' said Roland Behm, a mental health advocate who supported the measure. 'But it's incumbent upon the parents and the community members to be active in working with schools to ensure we have a more thoughtful process, instead of simply a quick response to something someone's offended by.' There are no restrictions on firearms included in this bill, which would have likely faced stiff resistance in the Republican-controlled General Assembly. Although most Democrats voted for the bill, they had hoped to tie the legislation to an effort to enact gun safety measures. The final version of the bill passed with 154 votes out of 180 in the House, and 45 votes out of 56 in the Senate. 'If we wait around for the perfect, we'll never get the good,' Behm said. 'There's always another session.' Here are some other elements of the bill: — It could trigger a visit from a social worker for a student who suddenly stops attending school without notice. — It would institute an anonymous platform where anyone could report students who may pose a threat to school, staff, students or themselves. — And it would install mental health coordinators who would connect students to resources in the community for support and behavioral health treatment. Kemp also signed legislation Monday that would allow Georgia to join an interstate compact for school psychologists, to allow clinicians who are licensed in other states to practice here. And he signed a measure that would require schools who have students with high rates of absenteeism to review the causes of why they are not attending class. 'Our children cannot learn if they are not in school,' Kemp said. ___ © 2025 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Yahoo
29-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Gov. Kemp signs bill to bolster school safety, quicken emergency responses
Gov. Brian Kemp signed multiple bills into law on Monday to provide additional safety measures for students and teachers. House Bill 268 will require schools to have up-to-date mapping and silent panic alarms that directly alert 911. The bill, also known as Alyssa's law, was named after Alyssa Alhadeff, one of the victims of the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting. Alyssa's Law seeks to reduce response times to school emergencies, such as medical issues or threats. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] Alyssa's parents were at the bill signing on Monday and Channel 2's Brittany Kleinpeter spoke with them. 'This is the 8th state we have passed Alyssa's law, and we hope to get it passed nationwide so that every school has this panic button as a standard level of school safety protection,' Lori Alhadeff said. Gov. Kemp also signed multiple other bills that ensure fairness in school sports and to improve the quality of education in Georgia. TRENDING STORIES: Popular apps could be collecting your data, affecting car insurance prices Investigator backs up witness saying defendant confessed to killing man near Atlanta BeltLine 'Emergency message' orders Social Security withhold 50% of benefits for those who were overpaid [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]
Yahoo
29-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Kemp signs bills requiring school panic buttons, ban on trans girls in Georgia school sports
Gov. Brian Kemp celebrates after signing education bills. Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder A bill aimed at boosting safety in Georgia schools and another banning transgender girls from girls' school sports teams were among a raft of priority education legislation signed into law by Gov. Brian Kemp Monday. 'As the parents of three daughters, (First lady Marty Kemp) and I know just how important it is to keep our children safe and to give them the best possible start in life,' Kemp said. 'That's why I'm proud to sign these bills that will further safeguard our classrooms, both from those with violent intentions and from out-of-touch political agendas.' As Kemp signed House Bill 268, he was backed by Winder Republican Rep. Holt Persinger, the bill's sponsor, and other members of the Barrow County community, which includes Apalachee High School. Apalachee High saw Georgia's deadliest school shooting last year, in which two teachers and two students were killed and another nine were injured. The bill was crafted as a response to the shooting and contains a number of provisions intended to decrease the likelihood of a similar attack. It requires schools to implement a panic button system that would allow employees to instantly contact authorities in case of an emergency. Apalachee began using a panic button system just a week before the shooting, and some have credited the devices with allowing law enforcement to react quickly enough to prevent more people from being killed. The bill also requires schools to share data when a student transfers within five school days. The accused teenage shooter at Apalachee had allegedly been interviewed by the FBI in connection with shooting threats at another district more than a year before the attack, but those allegations did not follow him to Barrow County. The most controversial element of the bill was stripped out before it passed the Legislature. Originally, it would have created a statewide database of students who might pose a threat to school safety. Opponents cited privacy concerns, saying that a student who made an idle threat against a classmate or another immature but harmless mistake could have their future opportunities threatened. Education bills signed by Gov. Kemp Monday Senate Bill 1 – Prohibits student athletes from playing on teams designated for the other gender and requires restrooms, locker rooms and sleeping areas to be single-gender at sporting events. House Bill 81 – Establishes an interstate compact for school psychologists to make it easier for professionals from other states to work in Georgia. House Bill 307 – Consolidates existing statutory requirements for dyslexia screening to reach students earlier. House Bill 235 – Allows education workers to receive a leave of absence to donate organs or bone marrow. Senate Bill 82 – Encourages local school boards to approve charter school petitions. Senate Bill 123 – Mandates the creation of review teams for school systems with high rates of chronic absenteeism. House Bill 268 – Requires schools to have up-to-date mapping and panic buttons, requires school records for transfer students to be transferred within five days, requires districts to provide anonymous safety reporting programs, creates new safety positions and new offenses for making threats against a school. The panic button portion of the safety bill was originally titled Ricky and Alyssa's Law after Richard Aspinwall, a teacher and coach who died in the Apalachee shooting and Alyssa Alhadeff, who was killed in the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Members of both families were on hand for the signing. Aspinwall's father-in-law Kevin Zinke said the ceremony was bittersweet. 'We're happy that the governor decided to sign it, but this whole thing has been a rollercoaster ride,' he said. 'You're just happy about something like this, but none of us should be here right now. None of us should be here for this. This could have all been prevented.' Alyssa's parents, Lori and Ilan Alhadeff, have been traveling the country advocating for panic button mandates. Georgia is the eighth state to pass such a law. Ilan Alhadeff called the buttons his daughter's legacy. 'She was inherently very protective of everyone around her. She always brought the crowds and was always defensive of everyone in her circle, and this is so nice to see and so vitally important to see that we're able to save lives. In the Apalachee shooting, it saved lives. A panic alert went off, and if it was not for that, more children and staff could have been killed that day. So this is just a clear example of how it saved lives. If it was there in 2018, our daughter would be here with us today.' Coach Aspinwall's father, who is also named Richard Aspinwall, said he's glad for the provisions that passed, but he said he hopes to see the database portion become law as well. 'We're going to keep working on that. You can't expect somebody to be blindsided with a problem,' he said. Senate Bill 1 was one of the most controversial bills of this year's session, which ended early this month. Also known as the Riley Gaines Act after a college swimmer who lost a tournament at Georgia Tech to a transgender swimmer, the bill bans transgender athletes from playing on team sports designated for their gender identity at all grade levels, including college. It also requires separate restroom, locker room and sleeping facilities for men and women at athletic events and sets up a way to legally challenge schools that violate the law. Supporters say the measure will ensure women and girls can find safety and fair play on the field. 'This common sense legislation is about what is fair and safe for our children,' Kemp said. 'Girls should not have to share a playing field, a restroom or locker room with boys. I know I learned a lot of valuable lessons about life on the football field and the baseball diamond growing up, and it's not right to ask kids today to forgo those lessons when facing someone biologically stronger and faster than them.' Opponents call the bill and other legislation taking away rights from transgender people attempts to score political points by going after a vulnerable group. The Georgia High School Association and NCAA already ban transgender athletes from playing in women's sports, and President Donald Trump signed an executive order earlier this year banning transgender participation in women's sports. Bentley Hudgins, state director with the Human Rights Campaign, said GOP legislators shot down Democratic efforts to boost girls' sports, including Senate Bill 41, which aimed to equalize funding, access and equipment between girls' and boys' school sports. 'Instead of addressing the real problems young women and girls face on the playing field, they chose to bully trans kids and put all girls in harm's way,' they said. 'Their absurd attacks on kids are tired and don't help anyone. While Republicans play political games and bully transgender children, they cannot and will not steal our joy.' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Hamilton Spectator
29-04-2025
- Politics
- Hamilton Spectator
As Gov. Brian Kemp signs Georgia school safety law, supporters look to implementing it
ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp on Monday signed a law that supporters hope will prevent future school shootings like the one that killed two students and two teachers on Sept. 4 at Apalachee High School northeast of Atlanta. Richard Aspinwall, the father of the Ricky Aspinwall, one of the teachers who was killed, called Monday 'a great day for advancing safety.' 'I don't want anyone else to have to go through this,' Aspinwall told reporters. You see it happening all over the country. It's got to stop. Some way or another, it's got to stop.' But like with most new laws, putting the words into practice will be key. 'Everybody's got to work together,' Rep. Holt Persinger, the Winder Republican who represents Apalachee High School and sponsored the bill, said after the signing ceremony. He said that included not only schools and local law enforcement agencies, but Georgia's child welfare, mental health and emergency management agencies. House Bill 268 was driven in part by the belief among many that the Barrow County school system didn't have a full picture of the warning signs displayed by the 14-year-old accused in the fatal shootings. School officials never became aware that a sheriff's deputy in Jackson County had interviewed Colt Gray in May 2023 after the FBI passed along a tip that Gray might have posted a shooting threat online. The new law requires police agencies to report to schools when officers learn that a child has threatened death or injury to someone at a school. It also mandates quicker transfers of records when a student enters a new school, creates at least one new position to help coordinate mental health treatment for students in each of Georgia's 180 school districts and sets up an anonymous reporting system statewide. Public schools will have to provide wearable panic buttons to employees and would be required to submit electronic maps of their campuses to local, state and federal agencies once a year. The law also makes adult prosecution the default when children aged 13 to 16 are charged with terroristic acts at school, any aggravated assault with a gun, or attempted murder. The measure, though, required only a reduced version of a student-tracking database that was once a centerpiece of the bill, after opponents raised fears that it could become a permanent blacklist of students. Instead, the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency was directed to create a database of students who an investigation has found threatened violence or committed violence at schools. The law directs GEMA to make rules about when names would be included and how someone could petition to be removed. But lawmakers didn't specifically appropriate any money to GEMA for what they called an 'emergency alert system.' Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith called the measure a 'good start line,' but agreed cooperation would be key moving forward. 'You're not always going to get the job done unless you communicate,' Smith said. 'And you've got to understand what lanes they're in. Law enforcement has a lane, education has a lane, and then you have the taxpayers who have a lane.' Getting the law passed was emotional for many, including Persinger, who cried on the day it got final approval, and for the Aspinwall family 'It is part of the healing, but you never really heal,' Aspinwall said. 'You always have your memories. It always hurts.'
