Atlanta – Georgia legislators are giving up Creation of a state database to collect information about students who can commit violence, even when other parts of a SCHOOL SECURITY INVOICE aimed at preventing a shooting at school like September in Apalachee Secondary School.
Chamber and Senate legislators presented a commitment of commitment to Bill from the camera 268 On Thursday, which then approved the Judicial Committee of the Senate unanimously. That prepares him for the final passage in the final days of the legislative session of Georgia.
He Push to share information It was driven by the belief among many that the Barrow County School System did not have a complete image of the warning signs shown by the 14 -year accused in the fatal shootings of two students and two teachers. But there was a strong opposition of democratic and republican constituencies that the database would create a permanent blacklist without the due process that could unfairly treat racial and religious minorities.
“The reason why he was not going to fly was the setback of all the points of the political spectrum that worried that his son was stigmatized only by an accusation or a complaint not corroborated,” Senator Bill Cowsert said, a republican from Athens that represents parts of the batch county.
The commitment version also eliminated the requirement that all school systems establish formal threat management teams to assess whether students can commit violence. Many national experts recommend that approach, and the Emergency Management Agency of Georgia and National Security Agency already offers training. The president of the Education Committee of the House of Representatives, Chris Erwin, Republican of Homer, said he hoped that schools would voluntarily adopt the model.
“I think there is a knowledge of the importance of planning and preparing in schools,” Erwin said. “Therefore, having a complete model structure for the state is not as important as we perhaps think it was.”
The measure would still require the police agencies to inform schools when the officers find out that a child has threatened death or injuries to someone in a school. But these reports are not mandatory to be part of the educational history of a student and would not travel with one student if they are transferred to another district.
That raises questions about whether the bill addresses one of the key criticisms that followed the Apalachee shooting. School officials never realized that a Sheriff deputy in Jackson County had interviewed Colt Gray In May 2023, after the FBI spent advice that Gray could have published an online threat. That report would have been sent to high school officials in Jackson County under the bill, but would not have followed Gray when he registered as a first -year student in the nearby Barrow County after skipping the eighth grade completely.
The bill also requires faster records of records when a student enters a new school, creates at least a new position to help coordinate the mental health treatment for students in each of the 180 school districts of Georgia and establishes an anonymous report system throughout the state.
Legislators added the characteristics of the separate Senate bills that had passed. They would direct that all Georgia public schools provide portable panic buttons to employees. Public schools should also present electronic maps of their campus to local, state and federal agencies once a year.
The amended bill would also make the prosecution of adults the breach when children aged 13 to 16 are accused of terrorist acts at school, any aggravated assault with a weapon or attempted murder. The Senate had originally proposed a broader range of crimes when adult prosecution would be non -compliance. Chamber leaders had said they did not want to present more minors to adult prosecution.
