S.B. 51 School Safety Modifications: transcript

You're on 51? That's correct.

It's a school safety amendments. Okay. What this bill, um, contemplates is having a, uh, the, uh, panic alert buttons in school. Um, it, well, if you, uh, if that needs to be used for some reason, and you have a student, it's not really tied to the panic alert, but you have a student who performs what then the working group, every school has, uh, school safety, um, working task team. So it would have to rise to the level that, you know, not that they scared somebody and, you know, but they were, they, they were considered a serious threat, such as bringing a weapon to school. That's not a, that's not an, okay. Oh, I messed up type of deal. That's, uh, uh, could definitely be one you could use as an example. So when that happens, what the state school board has lacked the ability to do to, to channel that to any other school. And then, uh, the perpetrator can go to another school with that, uh, flag on their SIS and, um, with that flag on the SIS then the school, before they enroll, they say, whoa, there's a stop sign here. We need to go back and just call the other school. And they can get that data. It's not the ultimate that we are trying to build, but it is, um, a use of the system now until we can build out the full more almost criminal justice style reporting that is, uh, would have a lot better effect tied to the, um, badges, panic alert badges, and the entire system. So it's really what it does.

I move that we favorably recommend SB 51 second substitute Order. Would you like to speak to It Just seems clear that it's something we need to do.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Air appreciate, uh, being here with the committee. I, I do have a substitute on SB 51, if you'd like to move that now. Uh, I, I could speak to that if you'd like.

I'm rusty at this too, but I'd like to delete and title and Body Senate bill 51 school safety modifications and replace it with Senate bill 51 part two. Is it first substitute? First Substitute. First substitute. There we go. 2.0.

Perfect. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, and that's the substitute. It, it's, uh, not super inclusive. It just adds a definition, adopts a definition and mentions that if a mental health professional is available, uh, in the threat assessment of student safety, then, uh, but if they're not available, obviously you can't use one in the threat assessment. SB 51 comes to us from the School Security Task Force. This bill creates not really a system, but more of a process for the State Board of Education to collect and share information about student threats between local education agencies. Uh, it also protects, uh, provides protections for student privacy and establishes data collection procedures. And, um, with immunity provisions for good faith reporting. What this bill is meant for is communication between districts. Um, if, when there's a lot of transferring, um, former high school counselors, so I know this world, we have students coming and going all times of the year. Um, last year we had an incident where a perpetrator was, uh, guilty and had victim, and the, the victim had moved to another school, and the perpetrator actually went and enrolled in that new school. With that, the school had no idea that there had been issues. They admitted the student and put 'em in the same exact classroom with the victim. If, if this bill's in place, then if it was a, uh, threat of violence, uh, something serious like that, then there would be a flag. That's what the process is. We have the system U sims or, uh, the URE system. It would just put a flag on this student's account that says there's been an issue here. And, uh, the student where a new, uh, the new school where the student would be transferring, would know they could see that flag. We need to investigate this and see why the student is flagged. Um, the data is housed in the system. It's, it's related to what has to be a credible threat made by a student. It's evaluated by a threat assessment process. And we have that, those team members now in place throughout the, the state. In every school, the threat has to be, uh, determined to pose a potential risk to school safety, including threats of violence against students, school personnel, or school property. And it, uh, it'll be maintained by the school safety center. This, the system will be to provide assessment training to LEAs and establish best practices. Uh, at the top of the list of, uh, making sure we protect is student privacy. But probably beyond that is student safety. In all of our schools, we've invested, uh, uh, over a hundred million dollars in hardening our schools. And that's not counting the hundreds of millions in construction with new plans in place to make our schools safer. And this is just one step that was requested by the, um, this task force to put in place that other states have now, so we can know before students are moving to other districts if they've had, uh, acts of violence, um, and they're on a violent track. So, uh, I do have Chief Pennington here, and I'll let him, uh, explain what his role and what he's seen as the development of this bill. Go ahead. Chief State your name for the record, and, uh, tell us who you represent and then go ahead.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm Matt Pennington. I'm the State Security Chief with the Utah Department of Public Safety. I was also a member of the School Safety Task Force with Senator Owens. So, as he mentioned, there's been a lot of conversation and bills in the last few years, and money spent on the Harding of Targets armed personnel in the, in the schools for response. If and when something happens. However, the goal is interrupting the pathway to violence ahead of time. And a key proponent to that is this threat management system, or the assessments to make sure students or people that are on that pathway aren't getting lost in translation, especially as they transfer schools. And what we've seen kind of happen throughout the years is if a student transfers districts, it doesn't even need to be, you know, cash to Washington. It could just be across I 15 to a different district. There's a delay in that transfer of record and the new LEA may or may not know what this student's history is. So Senator Owens bill addresses some of that while also taking into consideration the privacy of the students on essentially a need to know basis if there's something that's been deemed a credible threat. He's been open and responsive to our suggestions on some language changes and things that maybe will help clean this up or parallel this system all the way through their educational journey. So I'm happy to answer any questions about our experience or what we're seeing on our side if the committee has any.

Okay. Very good. Mr. Chair of, uh, chief Bennington's, the great leader on this task force and team. He has a huge lift, uh, managing all the school districts and schools, and he's done a great job helping make sure that our students are safe. And that's really the what, what this is about. So that concludes our presentation.

Thank you. Um, thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate all the work you're doing. I like this bill. Um, but when we think about some of the things that are happening in our schools, they sound really great on paper, and then when we actually try to implement them, they're really difficult. Uh, I'm getting a few emails about door stops. You know, having a third grade classroom where you have to keep the door completely open or locked is really problematic for every teacher across the whole entire state, because in, on paper it sounds good, but when you actually try to teach a class and have the door completely opened or completely locked, it's very disruptive. So this bill sounds really great, but if you get a student that comes to your school and, you know, school's happening and you don't see that indication right away, and something happens, are we gonna be opening up our schools for a lawsuit because we didn't check the record quickly enough? And that's my first question. And then my second question would be, where is the responsibility for our students to be, um, res responsible for their record? I mean, is there a way that maybe we can make them be responsible for self-identifying that something has happened in a previous school? I mean, as a teacher, I have 24 hours before I have to report that I've been arrested for something that's part of the law. So, um, I think this should be twofold that the school shouldn't be holding all that responsibility. Because if you think about it, that might open us up for, I was gonna move You to the legal issues because we didn't check the records quickly enough. So is it just in eims or is it something that, I mean, how does it, how do you make sure that you've seen that, that that credible threat is happening? Does this make sense to you? Okay.

It does. It does, Mr. Chair, uh, uh, answer to that? Uh, and I appreciate the question. Um, I don't, you know, it does have on reporting, there's, um, some provisions of immunity provisions on the reporting, but on, on the, the student coming in, you can, you can admit a student, you're not gonna be, uh, liable for that if, if you didn't check the record. But if the, and the system's already in place, that's the nice part, is we've already spent the money to build UREs and use sims and all this is just a flag that says, this was a, there was a violent student's on a track for violence. And I, I hope it's one in a million. Mm-hmm. It should be. As a school counselor, I can tell you I have one or two students that would probably hit this path in my 20 years, but those are the ones that get on the news for the unthinkable mass shootings. And that's all, that's all we're trying to do, is just get, use the system. We have to flag, um, uh, it wouldn't be the, the student's responsibility to take the record, just simply like an IEP. That's how it transfers. Just digi, just digitally. Yeah.

May I have a follow up? Yeah, go ahead. Um, I, I, and IEPs are missed and so are, um, some other things in the school districts that I'm representing, this does happen more because there's more gang activity. Uh, so I, I like the spill. I really think it's a great, um, step in the right direction. But I, I would like to see that there's some kind of protections for our districts not to be held accountable for, you know, 24 hours, 48 hours. Um, how do we protect our districts from saying, look, the law says you were supposed to see that right away. And, um, I'm not trying to protect bad actors. I'm not trying to protect schools overwhelmingly, but I just wanna make sure that there is a good policy in place where we're not, um, creating a situation where somebody sat next to somebody else, something happened, and now, well, you didn't check the record quick enough. And so how do we make sure the record is very obvious so that we're not missing that when it happens? Because if we are required to do that, and we are required to see it, and then we don't, that's problematic. So, I, I think the bill is great, and I'd love to hear Penny. Um, yeah, I'll let, uh, chief Bennington maybe respond to that. Thank You, chief. Yeah, thanks

Senator. And, and valid questions. So just keep in mind, there are already some laws in place for mandatory mandatory reporting requirements from LEAs for certain status offenses that are mandatory. The law currently says records are to be transferred within 14 days. I believe I've read a bill recently that is possibly changing that, but currently the law says 14 days. And so they do have that. What this essentially will do is clean up where that information's going as it's being transferred for a credible threat. So going to the, the state system, which you've seen successfully done in other states who we've sort of modeled some of our school safety legislation specifically, like Texas, Florida has a similar system where it funnels up through their Department of Education and then back out. So I think as long as the laws that are in place are being followed as intended, this bill just adds some clarification to that as to what we're looking to make sure gets transferred. And again, while also making sure it's a need to know on a credible threat, not just giving student information without forethought.

Thank you, chair Johnson. I move that this committee favorably recommend Senate Bill 51 School safety modifications.

I'm just turn my light off. Okay. Okay.

No, good. You're good. Thank you, Mr. Chair and Committee. I appreciate the motion. We love our, we love our young people, and we're, we wanna do all we can, this is just a, another minor step in the direction, trying to make sure that our schools, our teachers, everyone that is involved with them, um, are safe. And, and that we do send a message too, that it's not okay to make violent threats or bring weapons to school. And, and, uh, there will be some accountability for that. So don't do it. And, uh, this, this is the step in that direction to make sure they stay safe. So, thank you.

And I'll waive summation.

Thank you President. This bill comes to us from the, uh, school security task force working group and a challenge that, uh, we have and to trying to avert the unthinkable of, uh, of a mass school violence. So, uh, this bill, what I'd like to do is, um, move it to the third, but then I do have a substitute that will be, uh, where we have the language that will come today. 'cause it doesn't create a system for the State Board of Education to collect and share information about, um, a student that's on a violent path. But it's, this just sets up a process so that let's say a a student brings a weapon to school and that that's a serious defense. So this, this is, uh, something that needs to simply put a flag on that student's SIS number. So if they transfer to another school district, that flag is there. This other school district doesn't have any information. They can just go look and say, uh, there's some history before we enroll this student. We, we better, better check this out. And they can then, uh, go to the system, call the other schools and find out what the flag was about. So, uh, that's what we're trying to do. I mean, we had an incident where we had a victim who transferred school districts and, and unbeknownst to the school, the perpetrator followed and enrolled in the same school district and somehow was able to get the same classes so they end up in the same class as someone who they victimized. There's no way for the school to know that unless we had a, just a simple flag there. So it's not a really, a system just sets up a process so we can share that information. It's really trying to, um, revert the unthinkable. That's what this step would be. Give them the, uh, state's court ability to, to flag a student. With that, I'd be open to questions.

Thank you, president. I call to question The question is, shall first substitute Senate Bill 51 be read a third time Roll call vote.

Senator Vickers Baldy Aye. Lewin Ramer col. Bus cullimore Escamilla Aye. Fillmore Aye. Grover Aye. Harper Kins. Aye. Ipson Johnson Aye. Quan Aye. McKay Mikel Milner Musselman Owens Aye. Picture Lum Rebe Aye. Sandal Stevenson Stratton Vicars Weiler Aye. Wilson Aye. Winterton Aye. President Adams Aye. Aye. Senator McKay. There we go. Yeah. Thank you.

I could speak to that if you would like. Okay. The second substitute really reduces the, what it qual uh, qualifies that this really isn't setting up a system for the State Board of Education. This is a process so it's much simpler just a process of, uh, out of the school safety task force so that if someone has a violent, um, act brings a weapon to school or something like that, that, that they, there's a flag placed on that student SIS Nu account so that uh, that other schools, if there was a transfer of school districts, et cetera, would be aware of it. All of this, uh, privileges provides protection for student privacy are all in place. And that's what the substitute does is just changes it to a process.

Thank you President ProAm. I think I really, um, already explained this, um, changed it to a process, puts this safety in place for all school and school children throughout the state. I'd be open to any questions.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. Uh, this one is, uh, essentially a flag bill, not that kind of flag bill. When I mentioned that this morning, it brought some trauma out and one of our colleagues, it didn't mean to do that. It's not that. Um, this is the kind of flag when we have a particularly, uh, uh, violent student or someone that, uh, has threatened violence when they're transferring schools. The kind of flag that you raise the hand and say, Hey, when we transfer this one, make sure you look at that record. Let's make sure that we have that process in place so that we're not, uh, transferring a problem. We, I was reminded by one of our colleagues here from Utah County that we just dealt with one of the cases out of West High School wherein we transferred. And that information was not communicated even just in the same district from the junior high to the high school. Um, I have a case in my district, uh, this is a bullying case, but it was a severe enough bullying case that we transferred the student out of the elementary school to another elementary school. Unfortunately shorter. Shortly after that, we transferred the bully to the same classroom at the other elementary school. So relying on, uh, manual processes, not always super effective. Um, the attempt here is to, um, provide the state school board with the tool that they need to help the districts coordinate to make sure that when these transfers happen, that we are not, uh, dropping the ball on either, uh, cases that need to be followed up with. Or in the case that I mentioned earlier, we're not transferring the problem that the literal bully of the child to the school and the same classroom that we transferred the victim to. And I'm happy to answer any questions.

I'll waive. Thank you. Mr. Speaker summation has been waived.