Lawmakers whose communities have been rocked by school shootings hope to avert future tragedies through policies that emphasize prevention.
Bills in at least six states aim to address weak points in school safety practices that were evident in recent attacks. They include requirements to create school-based teams to respond to threats and information-sharing systems for schools and law enforcement.
鈥淲e want to be proactive and not reactive,鈥� Georgia House Speaker Jon Burns, a Republican, said during a Feb. 3 news conference where he announced a sweeping school safety bill.
The new legislative action suggests lawmakers are heeding the advice of school safety experts to give equal or greater attention to 鈥渉uman factors"鈥攍ike training, prevention, and encouraging students to report concerns about potential violence鈥攁s they do to security measures.
And while many state lawmakers have filed broad school safety bills that include money for security measures, many of those proposals include such prevention efforts.
鈥淲e need to get much better in this country about breaking down the bystander effect,鈥� said Jaclyn Schildkraut, the executive director of the Regional Gun Violence Research Consortium at the Rockefeller Institute of Government. 鈥淲e have to make it so that, when people suspect something, they say something. We don鈥檛 do always do that with mass shootings.鈥�
State lawmakers focus on school violence prevention
Prevention became a legislative priority for Georgia lawmakers after a shooter, who police identified as a 14-year-old student, shot 11 people at Apalachee High School in Winder, Ga., killing two teachers and two students.
After that Sept. 4, 2024 attack, officials discovered missed opportunities to intervene. Threats the suspect had posted online had been investigated and dismissed as jokes, educators struggled to respond to a last-minute warning call from the alleged shooter鈥檚 mother, and because the student had recently transfer between districts, there were gaps about what his school knew about his behavioral and disciplinary history.
To address those gaps, Burns鈥� bill would require the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency to maintain a 鈥渟chool and student safety database鈥� that would collect information about students鈥� threats, concerning behaviors, disciplinary history, and interactions with police and make that information accessible to schools, law enforcement, and mental health professionals who need it to address concerns students may harm themselves or others.
Florida lawmakers mandated a similar, more expansive database following a 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland that would also incorporate data from social media monitoring sites. Civil rights groups raised alarms, suggested the data collection presented a privacy risk and may lead to unfair profiling.
In Georgia, Burns鈥� bill would also mandate school-based 鈥渢hreat management teams鈥� of administrators, mental health professionals, and law enforcement to investigate reported threats; require schools to use an anonymous reporting app to collect tips about concerning behavior; provide $50 million for one-time school safety grants; and require schools to immediately suspend students who make threats until police and administrators determine it鈥檚 safe for them to return.
The Apalachee shooting was the deadliest school shooting in 2024, according to a tracker maintained by Education Week. That tracker counted 39 shootings in 2024 that resulted in injuries or deaths and occurred on school grounds during the school day or during a related activity.
The second deadliest incidents occurred at both Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wis., where a 15-year-old student killed two people on Dec. 16; and at Perry High School in Perry, Iowa, where a 17-year-old student killed two people on Jan. 4. Police said both of those suspects had a known interest in previous school shootings, such as the 1999 attack at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., and both posted concerning messages online.
Iowa lawmakers have responded by introducing a bill that would allow public schools and accredited private schools to create threat-assessment teams and allow schools to more easily share information with social workers, law enforcement, and mental health professionals.
In January, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, created an office of violence prevention through an executive order. He also called on lawmakers to pass a 鈥渞ed flag law鈥� that would allow courts to restrict an individual鈥檚 access to guns if they are deemed a threat to themselves or others.
鈥淎 lot of our work is not just to prevent people from hurting others, but to make sure people are safe from hurting themselves,鈥� he said.
In other states, lawmakers from both major parties have proposed safety bills that emphasize prevention. In Michigan, signed by Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in January requires schools to create threat-assessment teams. A New York bill would also .
In Minnesota, would require schools to report all threats to a state 鈥渇usion center鈥� that allows law enforcement agencies to share information. A would require schools to provide materials to parents about how to respond to concerning behavior if their child is flagged by a threat-assessment team.
School shooters show warning signs
School violence prevention efforts, like anonymous tip reporting systems, are grounded in research that shows most school shooters鈥攁nd mass shooters in general鈥� tend to signal their intentions to friends and family beforehand, a pattern known as 鈥渓eakage.鈥� 69传媒 have encouraged students to adopt a 鈥渟ee something, say something鈥� approach, telling trusted adults if their peers show signs they may harm themselves or others.
To help respond to those warning signs, school-based threat-assessment teams, often made up of administrators, counselors, and school security staff, review reports and immediately referr imminent threats to police. In other cases, they make a plan to support the student through measures like counseling or frequent check-ins with adults until the risk is resolved.
About 71 percent of U.S. schools had a threat assessment team during the 2023-24 school year, according to the , and . But researchers say there is wide variability between states and districts in how those teams function. Among the differences: whether police serve on the team, what supports students receive after they are reported, and whether schools follow research about effective threat-assessment processes.
A review of more than 23,000 student threat assessments educators conducted in Florida schools conducted during the 2021-22 academic year found evidence the process had averted potential acts of violence. But some schools hadn鈥檛 fully trained staff in the state鈥檚 required model by the time researchers from the University of Virginia collected their data. 69传媒 also varied in the information they kept about if, and how, students were disciplined after a threat assessment was completed.
Teams must respect students鈥� rights, advocates say
Civil rights groups that threat-assessment teams must be monitored carefully to ensure students in certain demographic groups, like Black students and students with disabilities, aren鈥檛 consistently deemed more threatening than others or disciplined without due process.
In Iowa, civil rights advocates said the proposed bill offers broad and vague criteria for opening a threat investigation in the case of an 鈥渆motional disturbance,鈥� a vague term that could be unfairly and subjectively applied, .
鈥淭he breadth of these terms that they鈥檙e using, where the student is experiencing or at risk of emotional disturbance or mental illness, lots of things can be a mental illness that a student can be suffering from and it doesn鈥檛 necessarily mean they鈥檙e a threat,鈥� said Lisa Davis-Cook, the director of government affairs for the Iowa Association for Justice, told the Gazette.
Privacy advocates also caution that any information sharing must comply with federal privacy laws.
When handled carefully, information sharing could provide a clearer picture for schools about to support students in crisis, Schildkraut said.
鈥淚f you don鈥檛 have all of the pieces of a puzzle, it鈥檚 very difficult to put them all together,鈥� she said.
But researchers have also found variation in what educators and administrators deem a credible threat.
That鈥檚 why Schildkraut鈥檚 research team is combing through more than 108,000 pages of official records from 173 mass shootings that occurred from 1999-2024 before they attacked. They hope to identify patterns that can help threat-assessment teams know what to look for.
鈥淲e want to say: Here鈥檚 what this looks like, here鈥檚 how threats are communicated, and here are the other things behaviorally at the same time,鈥� she said.
