From left to right, Richard and Rita Aspinwall, parents of Ricky Aspinwall, an Apalachee High School math teacher and football coach who was killed in a 2024 school shooting, stand behind House Speaker Jon Burns during Monday’s announcement for school safety legislation. Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder
House Speaker Jon Burns announced Monday legislation to enhance school safety following last year’s deadly school shooting in Barrow County.
Burns, a Newington Republican, stated that House leaders would introduce legislation Tuesday calling for a statewide database to track student mental health histories, development of an app for anonymously reporting threats to schools and a requirement for school districts to create safety management plans.
The school safety proposal also includes an additional $50 million in one-time school safety grants, which would give each public school in the state $68,000 for safety upgrades.
The legislation would also offer tax incentives for the purchase of firearm safes and other safety equipment and strengthen criminal penalties for students and other individuals who target schools with terroristic threats.
Burns stressed the seriousness of copycat threats that often follow tragedies like the Apalachee High School mass shooting on Sept. 4 that killed two students and two teachers and injured several others.
The Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency would help develop the system tracking student mental health history and reported threats that would be investigated by school personnel, mental health professionals and law enforcement agencies to determine the seriousness. Burns said the plan would also create mandatory suspensions of students from school while the extent of their threats are investigated.
School security and student resource officers have remained in the national spotlight since the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that resulted in the deaths of 20 children and six adult staff members.
Since then, there have been several other deadly school shootings across the country, including last year’s Barrow County incident that resulted in the arrest of 14-year-old Apalachee High School student Colt Gray who faces multiple homicide charges for the shooting.
Burns said the school safety plan is intended to ensure the safety of young people, teachers and other school staff.
“That’s why the House is taking the following measures to ensure a tragedy like what we witnessed in Apalachee never happens again in this state,” he said. “We know that failure to transfer and share information regarding the student who is accused of these horrific acts played a role in the deaths that unfolded that day. Our school safety plan will mandate participation in a statewide student information sharing and tracking database that will allow for timely transfer of relevant student data between school systems, law enforcement and mental health care professionals.”
On Monday, Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith and Richard and Rita Aspinwall, parents of Ricky Aspinwall, an Apalachee math teacher and football coach killed in the shooting, were guests at the school safety press conference held inside the state Capitol. Gray’s father, Colin Gray, also faces felony charges for purchasing the AR-15 rifle as a gift for his son that police say was used to kill 14-year-olds Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo and teachers Aspinwall and Cristina Irimie.
Smith said he was proud of the heroic efforts of law enforcement and school staff during the tragic shooting and was supportive of the House safety plan.
“As human beings, we’re tasked with taking care of others who cannot take care of themselves,” Smith said. “Our kids are our future. As Speaker Burns said, we should do everything we can to protect them.”
Some of the proposals in the House Republican Majority Caucus plan have been championed by Democratic legislators, such as incentivizing the safe storage of firearms. Last year, both chambers passed their own version of a tax incentive with wide margins, but neither chamber approved the other’s plan.
Democrats in the Senate and House have also re-filed legislation this year that would also punish adults who don’t properly store firearms away safely in a manner preventing minors from accessing them.
The prospective Burns’ legislation does not call for stronger gun control laws championed by Georgia Democratic lawmakers and organizations like Moms Demand Action. There are also questions about how well the House GOP measure will protect the confidentiality of students.
“I think school safety is something we’re going to come to the table on because we have to do everything we can to make sure that our students are safe at schools,” House Minority Leader Carolyn Hugley, a Columbus Democrat, said in an interview last week with the Georgia Recorder. “That’s going to require us to look at internal threats as well as external threats.”
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