Bipartisan school safety legislation introduced to develop emergency parental notifications

Author: Sommer Senne Writer: Sommer Senne
Published: Updated:

Since the Georgia school shooting, multiple school threats have happened in Lee, Collier and Hendry counties in Southwest Florida.

Now, new bi-partisan school safety legislation was introduced Tuesday to streamline parent communication during emergencies.

Congressman Mario Díaz-Balart, along with Congressman Jared Moskowitz, Congresswoman Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick and Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick introduced the School Safety Notification System Act, which requires school districts to develop emergency response and parental notification procedures for specific threats and emergencies.

The notifications will list the primary emergency response agency responsible and the people inside the school who will contact that agency during an emergency.

The legislation will also implement commonly used alarm system responses for specific emergencies.

The goal is to streamline emergency response and parental notification procedures across all school districts for threats like weapons, active shooter or hostage situations, bomb threats, murder, sex offenses, trespassing, fires, natural weather emergencies, exposure to harmful substances and other threats or emergencies the schools deem as appropriate.

The legislation says parents and guardians will receive timely notifications of threats and emergencies.

WINK News asks what “timely” means and what type of notifications parents will receive.

Click here to view the new legislation.

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