Senator Patrick Diegnan’s legislation creating a “School Safety and Security Task Force” in New Jersey to ensure a safe learning environment for students and school employees will be considered for a vote on the floor of both houses.
Following the lead of the Senate Education Committee, which unanimously advanced the legislation five months ago, the Assembly Education Committee unanimously released the bill Thursday morning.
“Nothing is more important than the safety of our children,” Diegnan said. “In recent years, our nation’s schools have endured a spate of school shootings, leaving students, their parents, faculty, staff, administrators and the communities in which those families live paralyzed with unimaginable grief and pain.”
According to Education Week, 51 shootings on K-12 school property nationwide resulted in injuries or fatalities in 2022, the most in a single year since the independent news organization began collecting data five years ago.
More than 150 shootings during which at least one person was killed or injured have occurred at K-12 schools nationwide over the past five years, according to Education Week.
“We cannot accept the frequent occurrence of school shootings as our new reality,” Diegnan said. “The task force will equip us with the knowledge to combat this growing epidemic and provide critical information to determine the most effective means of protecting our children.”
Assemblywoman Pamela Lampitt, who chairs the Assembly Education Committee, sponsored the bill in the lower house.
“We want to make sure that New Jersey is the No. 1 state in educating our students,” Lampitt said during Thursday’s Assembly Education Committee meeting. “If we can’t provide them with a safe environment and continue to evaluate and ensure the fact the schools that our students and staff and our educators are in are the safest they can be, then we are not doing the due diligence so that when a student goes to school they are not fearful, when a teacher steps into their classroom they don’t need to be concerned about which exit am I going to get my classroom out of.
“That’s the duty of this task force, is to be able to make sure that from all aspects we are thinking about safety for those who want to be educated and want to be in New Jersey. We want to be known as the No. 1 state for education, but education and safety, I’d like to add.”
The New Jersey Education Association, New Jersey Principals and Supervisors Association, New Jersey School Boards Association, New Jersey Association of School Administrators, New Jersey Children’s Foundation, Garden State Coalition of Schools, New Jersey Charter Schools Association, and New Jersey Council on Developmental Disabilities are among the groups in support of the legislation.
Profoundly impacted by the mass school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, Amy Papi, a highly respected advocate in Diegnan’s legislative district, contacted the senator about the need to address preparedness and response to such heinous acts.
“I had a heartfelt desire to see something done because I want to save lives,” said Papi, whose goal is to prevent such tragedies from befalling students and educators with the hope policies New Jersey adopts will serve as a model for other states nationwide.
“This incident can happen at any moment and anywhere,” Papi said. “We’re not sure when it’s going to happen and why experience it once again if we can prevent it.”
The 15-member task force will study and develop recommendations to improve school safety and security and identify potential breaches of security in school facilities and on school grounds.
Issues the task force will study include, but are not limited to:
· Placing screening systems at school entrances
· Stationing school resource officers in each school building
· Improving response times to emergency situations including lockdowns, active shooter, and bomb threats
· Requiring advanced student and visitor identification cards
· Using biometric, retina, or other advanced recognition systems for authorized entrance into school buildings
· The effectiveness of installing panic alarms in school buildings to alert local law enforcement authorities to emergency situations, required under “Alyssa’s Law”
· Scheduling periodic patrols of school buildings and grounds by local law enforcement officers
· Hardening the school perimeter and building entryways
· Strategies and supports to ensure needs of students with disabilities are reflected in planning, training, community coordination, drills, recovery, and other areas of emergency planning and response measures
· Architectural design for new school construction
· Assessing and abating security risks in existing school facilities
· Emergency communication plans
· Staff training
The Commissioner of Education or a designee, the Director of the Office of Homeland Security or a designee, and the Chief Executive Officer of the New Jersey Schools Development Authority or a designee will be included on the task force.
Other agencies represented on the task force include the New Jersey Association of School Business Officials, the New Jersey Education Association, the New Jersey School Boards Association, the New Jersey Principals and Supervisors Association, the New Jersey Association of School Administrators, the New Jersey Public Charter Schools Association, the New Jersey Council on Developmental Disabilities, the New Jersey College and University Public Safety Association (NJCUSPA), and a Chief School Administrator from a nonpublic school.
Experts in the development or implementation of school security standards or technology, including an active or retired law enforcement officer and an active or retired mental health professional, will also be part of the task force.
The task force will issue a final report of its findings and recommendations, including any proposed legislation, to the Governor and Legislature no later than six months after its organizational meeting.
Senator Patrick Diegnan 