Rep. Holt Persinger hugs Rep. Marcus Wiedower after Persinger’s school safety bill passes the House. Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder
As the clock ticks down to Crossover Day, Georgia legislators passed a flurry of education bills, with subjects ranging from school security to requiring schools to ban cell phones for students.
These bills are now relatively safe for now, but they will need to pass the opposite chamber ahead of the end of the session, set for April 4.
Speaker’s priority school safety bill passes
With two days to go before the important legislative deadline of Crossover Day the state House passed an omnibus school safety bill touted as a top priority by House Speaker Jon Burns.
“I do believe that Georgia and Georgians have a bright future when it comes to education,” Burns said in a rare floor speech supporting the bill. “I know that to be the case. That future, our future, your children, your grandchildren, my grandchildren, deserve no less than to be able to drop be able to be dropped off at school by their parents, by their grandparents, with the surety that they will have a safe environment to learn during the day, and then to be picked up when school ends in the afternoon.”
House Bill 268 passed 159-13, with two Republicans joining a handful of Democrats in their opposition.
In addition to aiming to increase security measures and mental health resources for students in public schools, the bill aims to close communication gaps like the one that occurred ahead of September’s deadly Apalachee High School shooting in Winder.
To do that, the bill requires schools to share relevant student records, including academic and disciplinary records, when a student transfers between school districts.
“We know that a lack of information sharing occurred with the accused shooter at Apalachee, and this measure directly addresses that breakdown in communication,” said the bill’s sponsor, Winder Republican Rep. Holt Persinger.
Students who may pose a threat will be added to a database called the School and Student Safety Database, or S3, which includes incident records of students who have made threats or engage in other potentially dangerous behavior.
“I want to be very clear, not every student in our state will have an S3 data record,” Persinger said. “In fact, the vast majority of students will never have a record in the S3 database. S3 would also meet the highest security standards, and only individuals on local BTAM (Behavioral Threat Assessment and Management) teams and designated school and (Georgia Emergency Management Agency) personnel would have access to the S3 student record. Parents can also request a review of this data at any time”
But that record and the privacy issues surrounding it was the sticking point for opponents of the bill.
Smyrna Democratic Rep. Mekyah McQueen, a high school teacher, said she is concerned students could be added to the list for frivolous reasons and that being on the list could later be held against them.
“If this bill does not protect privacy, if it does not provide funding, if it does not respect local control, and if it duplicates work that schools and law enforcement are already doing, then what are we doing? If the goal is real safety, Let’s fund the people who do the real work. Let’s hire more counselors, more social workers. Let’s invest in mental health care and conflict resolution. But if the goal is simply to say we did something, regardless of whether it truly works, then let’s at least be honest about that.”
Democrats also said the bill did nothing to address the availability of guns to would-be school shooters.
The Georgia Freedom Caucus, a far right group of legislators, urged supporters online to speak out against the bill, calling it a “school surveillance” bill.
Put the phone down
The House passed a bill that would require local school districts to adopt policies banning cell phones in school at least up to eighth grade.
The sponsor of HB 340, Peachtree Corners Republican Rep. Scott Hilton, said the bill will minimize distractions in the classroom and help mitigate other problems like cyberbullying.
The bill passed 143-29.
Atlanta Democratic Rep. Bryce Berry, who is also a teacher, said sometimes students do classwork on personal devices like cell phones.
“My class might have about 23 students, but I have 15 working computers,” he said. “Is there a carveout for our lessons that might need a cell phone on that particular day because we don’t have enough working computers in the classroom?”
“So there’s nothing to stop the locals from, if they have their own laptop, you can learn on that, but yes, it does apply, so you’re no longer able to use this to learn,” Hilton said, holding up a cell phone. “And that’s part of, really, a nationwide policy that we’re seeing of best practices in the classroom.”
Tucker Democratic Rep. Imani Barnes said she was concerned about safety.
“My son texted me last week while we were sitting in here, ‘Mom we’re in a level three lockdown,’” she said. “What do we do in those types of situations?”
“We have talked to safety experts across the nation, across Georgia,” Hilton said. “All of them agree on one thing, is that in the case of an emergency, the last thing we want is a child to have a phone in their hand, they want the undivided attention of that student on the teacher, getting directions as to where to go. And then immediately after the situation is resolved, absolutely get the phone back, get communication again.”
What comes after the Department of Education?
As one of her first acts in office, newly-minted Education secretary Linda McMahon announced plans to terminate her department and shift control over education entirely to the states.
Georgia senators approved a plan to deal with that possibility by changing references to the national department in state code by adding “or its successor” after “The United States Department of Education.”
Cornelia Republican Sen. Bo Hatchett, author of Senate Bill 154, said the changes would be necessary to keep performing vital functions like granting occupational licenses and receiving federal grants if the DOE goes DOA.
Democrats largely oppose eliminating the U.S. Department of Education, and Democratic senators each dealt with the situation in their own unique way.
Sandy Springs Democratic Sen. Josh McLaurin did a Macho Man Randy Savage impersonation to mock McMahon’s former job as co-founder of World Wrestling Entertainment.
Atlanta Democratic Sen. Nan Orrock tried to shame her GOP colleagues.
“It’s disturbing to see members of the Republican party who know better chasing like lemmings toward the cliff, ‘yeah we’ve got to all get on board and shut down the federal Department of Education,’” she said. “I mean, we have college presidents, former college presidents in this body. We have school board members, my gosh, probably two dozen people here have served on school boards. How many of us have raised children and sent them to school? And what is the magic elixir here, what is this special potion of shutting down the federal Department of Education? Any takers? Come to the well and explain to us why that’s a good idea.”
Hatchett was not entirely unsympathetic.
“I’m not up here advocating for Donald Trump to do away with the U.S. Department of Education,” he said. “I’m advocating for him to do what’s best for our country, and in this room, we were elected to do what’s best for this state. And what they do at the federal level trickles down to us and we need to be prepared. So if you want to do what’s best for Georgia and prepare Georgia citizens, our children, and our schools for what could potentially come, vote for this bill.”
The measure passed 37-17 mostly along party lines.
House is ‘very serious’ about changing automated school-zone camera rules
The Senate will be receiving not one but two bills with very different approaches to automated school-zone speed cameras.
One bill proposes new limits and rules, like barring fines when the motorist is going nine miles per hour or less over the speed limit and requiring the cameras to only be used during school hours and for the revenue to be spent on school safety and shared with local law enforcement.
Another bill would ban the cameras altogether, repealing a law passed in 2018.
Macon Republican Rep. Dale Washburn, who is the sponsor of the outright ban, described the other bill as a “fix-it bill” that he also supports. He argues, though, that banning the cameras is the way to go.
“The evidence is they do not improve safety, that corporations take a massive cut of the revenue, and that it is often seen as very unfair ticketing that preys sometimes on the least able in our society to pay these fines,” Washburn said.
His bill passed the House with a 129-37 vote and with some forceful pushback.
“If people are mad that they’re getting tickets, maybe they shouldn’t speed in front of our babies,” said Rep. Stacey Evans, an Atlanta Democrat and a mom.
The second proposal passed Tuesday with more support, receiving a 164-8 vote. That bill is sponsored by Rep. Alan Powell, a Hartwell Republican.
“We’ll send two bills over to the state Senate because we’ve heard the words that come out of the Senate that they’ve got no appetite for banning anything. So, we want to give them a second choice,” Powell said of his bill Tuesday.
Powell said his version offers “extreme guard rails to clean it up the way it should be.” He said sending the two bills should signal to the Senate that the House is “very serious about dealing with this.”
Deputy Editor Jill Nolin contributed to this report.
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