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 to create plans to help students in need to get behavioral health support. The measure 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.
Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
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 to 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.
About the Author
Keep Reading
The Latest
Featured
