ATLANTA (AP) – Georgia lawmakers give up Creating a statewide database To gather information about students who may commit violence; School Safety Invoice It aims to prevent school shootings like in September Appalachie High School.
The House and Senators have released a compromise version House Bill 268 On Thursday, it later passed unanimously the Senate Judiciary Committee. This will allow for the final passage on the closing day of Georgia’s 2025 legislative meeting.
Push to share information The Barrow County school system was driven by the belief among many that there was no full picture of the warning signs presented by the accused in the fatal shootings of two students and two teachers. However, there was a great opposition from both Democrat and Republican constituencies that databases would create permanent blacklists without the right process that could unfairly treat racial and religious minorities.
“The reason it wasn’t going to fly was a pushback from every point on the political spectrum where a child was worried that they would be condemned solely for accused or accused complaints,” said Sen. Bill Kyausert, an Athens Republican who represents parts of Barrow County.
The compromised version removed the requirement that all school systems establish a formal threat management team to assess whether students commit violence. That approach has been highly recommended by many national experts, and Georgia’s Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency has already provided training. House Education Committee Chairman Chris Irwin, a Republican from Homer, said he hopes the school will voluntarily adopt the model.
“I think you already have the knowledge of the importance of planning and preparing at school,” Irwin said. “So having a complete model structure for the state isn’t as important as we once thought.”
The measure requires police agencies to report to the school when officers know that they are threatening the death or injury of someone at the school. However, these reports are not mandatory to be part of a student’s educational record and will not travel with students if they transfer to another district.
This raises questions about whether the bill will address one of the key criticisms that followed the Appalachie shooting. School officials never realised it. Jackson County Sheriff’s Deputies interviewed Colt Gray In May 2023, after the FBI passed along tips that Gray might have posted a shooting threat online. That report would have been forwarded to Jackson County Middle School officials under the bill, but it would not have followed Gray when he registered as a freshman in nearby Barrow County after skipping 8th grade completely.
The bill also requires students to enter new schools, create at least one new position to coordinate mental health care for each student in Georgia’s 180 school districts, and transfer records more quickly when setting up an anonymous reporting system across the state.
Lawmakers on Thursday added features of separate Senate bills passed. They require that all Georgia public schools provide wearable panic buttons to their employees. Public schools must also submit an electronic map of their campus to local, state and federal agencies once a year.
The amended bill also defaults to adult prosecutors if children ages 13 to 16 are charged with school terrorist acts, aggravated gun attacks, or attempted murder. The Senate originally proposed a wider crime when adult prosecution became the default. House leaders said they didn’t want to file any more juveniles for adult charges.
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