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Georgia
Bill:
HB 268
About the bill:
This bill aims to make Georgia schools safer, increase mental health support, and change how student information is shared.
This bill:
Sets up grants, or amounts of money, to give back to schools so schools can hire behavioral health coordinators.
Behavioral health coordinators: School staff members who help students with mental health needs, train teachers on how to support students, and make sure schools have programs to help with behavior and emotional health.
Makes schools have youth violence and suicide awareness training, which are lessons for staff to prevent students from hurting themselves or other people.
Makes schools update their student safety plans to include checks to see if students might threaten other people
Makes it easier for schools to share information about students with police.
Creates a new group, the ‘Office of Safe Schools’ to say what will happen if a student is found to be a “threat.”
The new Office of Safe Schools:
Is an office in the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency, which is a state office that helps keep schools and communities safe by preparing for emergencies, stopping threats, and responding to dangerous situations.
Creates rules for school safety and does safety checks.
Creates a state-wide School and Student Safety Database to:
Track students who might pose a threat.
Help schools organize support.
Hold write ups that say whether schools are following safety rules
Updates the "Parents' Bill of Rights," which explains what parents can do about their child’s experience at school, with new rules for seeing student information.
Makes all public schools have a plan in place to see if students are a threat to other people.
Makes threatening to kill or really hurt someone at a school a bigger crime, called a felony.
Parents can face criminal charges if they push their child to make threats.
If a student makes a threat that the school thinks is likely to happen, they'll have to switch to learning from home instead of going to school.
The student must also get counseling, where they talk to a professional who is trained to support, while the case is looked into.
The number of coordinators the government will pay for with the grants depend on school size:
1 coordinator for schools with less than 18,000 students.
2 coordinators for schools with 18,000 - 36,000 students.
3 coordinators for schools with more than 36,000 students.
Coordinators will:
Help spot and support students with mental health needs.
Lead training programs focused on behavior and mental health.
Join school safety and student mental health trainings.
If this bill passes, school staff need to get trained in suicide prevention and violence awareness.
Two levels of behavior and mental health training is a must.
Training has to be "evidence-based" which means it can show actual success in lowering suicides.
If this bill passes, student education paperwork has to include "critical records," such as:
Behavior tests, how much they showed up to school, and when and how often they got in trouble.
Special education and mental health tests.
Schools must send these papers when a student moves.
Schools can ask courts to make parents share this information.
Written agreements are needed between schools and law enforcement agencies.
Agreements should cover:
Rules for handling student information.
Limits on when police can see school information.
The Department of Education, a government office in charge of public schools in Georgia, has to publish example agreements by October 1, 2025.
If this bill passes, school safety plans have to include student behavior and mental health.
If this bill passes, school safety paperwork and threat checks won’t be available to the public, so schools will be able to keep certain info private.
If this bill passes, these changes start when the governor, who leads the state of Georgia, gives the green light.
