Vetoed by Governor Brian Kemp

Vote Smart's Synopsis:

Vote to pass with amendment a bill that establishes the "Keeping Georgia's Schools Safe Act", requiring schools to perform certain threat assessments.

Highlights:

• Defines “site threat assessment” as conducting an evaluation for purposes of most effectively responding to, or preventing or reducing, the threat of violence, mass casualty incidents and other acts of terrorism, natural disasters, and hazardous materials or radiological accidents (Sec. 2).

• Authorizes trained and approved private individuals and entities or government agencies to provide site threat assessments to public schools (Sec. 2).

• Requires public schools to have performed a site threat assessment by January 1, 2021 or before its opening for use by students, and every 5 years thereafter (Sec. 2).

• Requires the Department of Education to post a list on its website naming all schools that have completed a school safety plan and all schools that have not completed a school safety plan (Sec. 2).

• Expands the requirements of school safety plans to include addressing (Sec. 2):

• Security issues in school safety zones

• Security issues involving school functions held during non instructional hours; and

• Security issues involving the transportation of pupils to and from school and school functions when such transportation is provided by the school or school system.

• Expands the responsibilities of the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency to include providing training and technical assistance for site threat assessments (Sec. 2).

• Requires every public school to conduct safety drills on reacting to potential mass casualty incidents at least once each school year (Sec. 2).

• Requires every local board of education to provide an annual report to the public for the prior school year and up to the date of the annual report on all projects, initiatives, and activities initiated, completed, or maintained for improving school safety planning, beginning July 1, 2019 and every following year (Sec. 2).

• Establishes that each principal of each public school will have the role of school safety coordinator or will assign a school safety coordinator from the school’s administrative, teaching, or counseling staff (Sec. 2).

• Establishes the responsibilities of the school safety coordinator as the following (Sec. 2):

• Issuing a report to the local board of education on a form given by the local board of education concerning the fulfillment of the requirements provided for under this section, on an annual basis starting June 1, 2020;

• Coordinating the best practices of school security with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency, the Georgia Information Sharing and Analysis Center, and the Department of Education;

• Reporting reasonable suspicion of violent criminal activity to any local law enforcement agency with jurisdiction over the geographical area of the school; and

• Working with all levels of law enforcement and mental health and social services providers whenever information concerning student behavior warrants.

• Authorizes the Department of Education to apply for federal or state grant funding regarding school safety (Sec. 3).

• Requires the Department of Education to work with all state and local governmental entities that play a role in school safety (Sec. 3).

• Requires the Georgia Information Sharing and Analysis Center to create and properly advertise for a smartphone or other digital application that can be used to report observations of suspicious, unsafe, or unlawful activity (Sec. 3).

• Authorizes the director, assistant director, or deputy director for investigations referred to in previous highlights, to issue a subpoena, with the consent of the Attorney General, to compel the production of books, papers, documents, or other tangible things (Sec. 5).

• Expands the definition of “homeland security activity” to mean any activity related to the prevention or discover of, response to, or recovery from an extraordinary law enforcement emergency, provided that such emergency will include the prevention or discover of, response to, or recovery from mass casualty threats, warnings, and developing situations at any public elementary school, secondary school, or local board of education (Sec. 7).

Full Bill Text