Georgia school safety bill signed into law after deadly Apalachee High School shooting

New school safety bill signed into law

A new bill created to help prevent school shootings like the one at Apalachee High School last year is now law.

ATLANTA - A new law signed by Gov. Brian Kemp on Monday is the latest effort by the state to bolster security for Georgia's students and teachers.

The changes come more than half a year after the shooting at Apalachee High School in Barrow County that ended with two students and two teachers killed.  

What we know:

House Bill 268 was driven in part by the belief among many that the Barrow County school system didn’t have a full picture of the warning signs displayed by the 14-year-old accused in the fatal shootings. School officials never became aware that a sheriff’s deputy in Jackson County had interviewed Colt Gray in May 2023 after the FBI passed along a tip that Gray might have posted a shooting threat online.

The new law includes a broad range of safety measures supporters hope will address those issues, including mandatory police reporting to schools when officers learn a child has threatened death or injury, quicker transfer of student records between schools, and a statewide anonymous reporting system.

Gov. Brian Kemp signs the school safety bill into law. (FOX 5)

One of the most contentious elements — a proposed student-tracking database managed by the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency (GEMA) — was scaled back in the Georgia Legislature after drawing criticism from both Democratic and Republican constituencies.

While the final version dropped the broad collection of law enforcement, court, and child welfare records initially proposed, it still instructs GEMA to create a "statewide alert system." That system would flag students who, following an investigation, are found to have threatened or committed violence at school.

GEMA is tasked with establishing rules for when names are added to the alert system and how individuals can seek removal. Authorized school officials across the state would be allowed to access the data.

Dig deeper:

In a shift toward tougher legal consequences, the bill would make adult prosecution the default for students aged 13 to 16 charged with certain violent crimes at school — including terroristic threats, aggravated assault with a gun, or attempted murder.

The law also requires public schools to provide wearable panic buttons to employees and would be required to submit electronic maps of their campuses to local, state and federal agencies once a year.

Along with these preventive measures, every Georgia school district will be required to add at least one new position focused on coordinating mental health treatment for students.

What they're saying:

Richard Aspinwall, the father of Ricky Aspinwall, one of the teachers who was killed, called said that the bill's signing on Monday was "a great day for advancing safety."

"I don’t want anyone else to have to go through this," Aspinwall said. "You see it happening all over the country. It’s got to stop. Some way or another, it’s got to stop."

Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith called the measure a "good start line," but agreed cooperation would be key moving forward.

"You’re not always going to get the job done unless you communicate," Smith said. "And you’ve got to understand what lanes they’re in. Law enforcement has a lane, education has a lane, and then you have the taxpayers who have a lane."