After 17 people were killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., Utah Republican lawmaker Ray Ward called for a historic investment of nearly $100 million to make Utah schools safer.
His bill received just 1% of that amount, or $1 million total, from the 2019 Utah Legislature.
And in the years since then — and 119 school shootings across the country later, including at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday where 21 died — the initiatives that Ward called for have never been fully funded by the state.
The Bountiful lawmaker said at the time that the Parkland murders should prompt Utah to hire more campus police officers, retrofit old schools to be more secure, and add more locks, better cameras, bigger fences — and more counselors.
Instead, here’s the few things that Utah lawmakers have approved and what schools are doing to improve safety.
What does Utah law require of schools to keep students safe from a possible shooter?
There is no state law around limiting or locking school “access points,” said Rhett Larsen, student and school safety specialist for the Utah State Board of Education.
Access points are places where people can enter a school, including doors and windows. And that’s typically considered the place to start for school safety.
Some schools in the state, for instance, lock all doors and have doorbells and video cameras at entrances. They funnel visitors there for screening before they can come inside.
But, Larsen said, those aren’t required. State law, he noted, doesn’t really have much that schools are mandated to do for safety.
There are some rules, though, from the Utah State Board of Education, which oversees public K-12 schools here, that districts and charters must follow. The main one is that each school must have an emergency preparedness plan for how they would respond to a shooter, including protecting kids and reuniting them with family afterward.
Those have to be created in coordination with local fire and law enforcement officials, Larsen noted.
Additionally, it’s required that schools create a threat assessment team made up of individuals from multiple disciplines, including police and mental health counselors, to regularly review possible threats.
What about shooter drills? Do schools have to hold those?
Yes. Under a rule from the Utah State Board of Education, schools must hold drills to teach students how to respond to the threat of a shooter.
Elementary schools are required to conduct a fire drill within the first 10 days of the start a new academic year, and then hold one every month after. On alternating months, they are supposed to hold other types of drills, including for: sheltering in place, earthquakes, lockdowns for violence, bomb threats and others.
It’s not specified how many lockdowns for violence — what some refer to as an active shooter drill — must be held. But a school district is supposed to work those into the schedule.
In middle schools, junior highs and high schools, there must be an emergency evacuation fire drill held every two months, for a total of four a year. But state law permits that the second and fourth drills “may be substituted” with a safety drill for sheltering in place, earthquake or lockdowns for violence. Again, how many lockdowns is not specified.
Larsen said schools are encouraged to hold these shooter drills so students can be prepared. ”We cannot do what we don’t practice,” he said.
But he also acknowledged they can be traumatic, especially for younger kids. He said schools are told not to create or add any drama to the drills, such as having someone dress up as a shooter and walk around the school (which Larsen said has happened in other states). Administrators are not supposed to make any sort of scenario, but instead just focus on the proper procedure.
Larsen said the timing of the drills can be tricky, so the Utah State Board of Education is working on an infographic for districts and charters to explain the different types and when they need to practice them.
What improvements have lawmakers funded since Parkland?
In 2018, when Ward first suggested his bill, it was put on hold. Then it was gutted of funding. Then it was delayed by a committee. “There was an outcry to do whatever we could do to make our schools a safe place for students,” Ward pleaded at the time.
On Wednesday, Ward sounded similar. “The horrible shooting in Texas gets our attention, and we worry so much about something like that occurring in our state,” he said.
Ward’s pared-down bill did help fund a new Student Safety Center under the Utah State Board of Education. That group meets to come up with recommendations for school safety.
The lawmaker says he believes that effort is going well. And he’d like to see what ideas have come out of that before putting more money into school safety.
“It’s not easy to understand what to put money toward that might help this,” he said. “We need to know what works, what makes it better, what makes the risk less.”
Some money went to a different bill that ended up funding school counselors. And five school districts have received grants to fund safety improvements.
— This story is developing and will be updated.
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