Our Commitment to School Safety

Our hearts are broken for the families in Texas who lost loved ones in the tragic school shooting that took place this week. Twenty-one families lost loved ones. Nineteen children will never grow up and their families will feel the loss every day for the rest of their lives. 

More pain and suffering is felt by the family of the teacher, Irma Garcia, who was one of the two teachers who were slain. Her husband suffered a massive heart attack two days later, after returning home from her memorial service. 

In the immediate aftermath of a tragedy like this, we should be focusing on supporting those who are grieving and investigating what led to such an awful event. Unfortunately, we’re seeing politicians across the state use this tragedy to score political points. There will be plenty of time for that later.

We share the public’s sense of urgency to keep our kids as safe as possible in schools and have focused not only on immediate needs to protect our children from attackers, but also long-term solutions to prevent crises from arising.

I want to go through a list of some things that have been done in North Carolina to keep our students safe.

• In 2013 we established the School Resource Officer grant program which provided $7 million in recurring funds available via grant to local school districts to place school resource officers in elementary and middle schools. The At-Risk allotment already provides funding for one SRO at each high school. 
• In 2014 and 2015 we passed legislation requiring local school districts to provide schematic designs to local law enforcement agencies as well as keys to the main entrance of all school buildings or an emergency access key to local law enforcement agencies and copies of updated keys as necessary
• In 2013, we allowed local school boards to enter into agreements with local law enforcement agencies to provide security at schools through the use of volunteer school safety resource officers. Volunteer safety resource officers must be either former law enforcement officers or military police officers and receive training and certification prior to working in a school.
• The 2015 budget directed the Center for Safer Schools to construct and maintain a statewide school risk and response management system and also directed the Center for Safer Schools to provide guidance to local school districts on hazards to plan and respond to, including intruders on school grounds.
• The 2015 budget also directed local boards of education to adopt School Risk Management Plans relating to incidents of school violence in coordination with local law enforcement and emergency management.
• Since 2015 we have required every school in a local school district to annually hold a school lockdown drill based on procedures in its School Risk Management Plan.
• In 2015, we directed the Center for Safer Schools to implement an anonymous safety tip line application and statewide panic alarm system.
• The 2018 Budget provided $5 million in funding for an app to allow reporting of threats and abuse in a confidential setting and provide full-time support from a team to actively triage threats.
• It also added $5 million in recurring funding, for a total of $12 million, to the School Resource Officer grant program for middle schools and elementary schools, including a $2 match for every $1 in local funds.
• The 2018 budget also focused on mental health by providing $2 million for community partners to provide mental health-related grants for students in crisis, $3 million in grants for mental health training for school safety employees, and $10 million in mental health grants for personnel on a nonrecurring basis.
• In 2018 we passed legislation that made mass threats against a school or house of worship a Class H felony instead of just a misdemeanor.  The bill also allows a judge to hold a person accused of making threats for up to 48 hours while it is determined whether they are mentally ill or a threat to themselves or others. 
• In 2019 we directed the Center for Safer Schools to begin conducting an annual census of school resources officers located in each public school unit. 
• We also provided new nonrecurring money for grants funded in 2018 for students in crisis ($4.5 million), training to increase school safety ($4.5 million), and safety equipment in schools ($6.1 million).
• Starting in FY 2019-20, we allocated an additional $20 million and up to $23 million recurring starting in FY 2020-21 to the Instructional Support allotment with the intent for these funds to be used for additional school mental health support personnel. 
• In the 2021 budget we appropriated even more money for school mental health support personnel by creating a new separate school psychologist allotment and allocating an additional $9.8 million to provide funding for each of the 115 local school districts to hire a school psychologist. 
• The 2021 budget also allocated almost $10 million in each year of the biennium for the School Safety Grant Program which still provides grants in the categories of students in crisis, school safety training, and safety equipment. 
• Funding for a new school safety training facility operated by the Center for Safer Schools and the Department of Public Safety was also allocated in 2021 ($1.7 million recurring). 

In North Carolina, we’ve included millions of dollars in grant funding for schools to increase security and training. We’ve also increased our spending for mental health support staff in schools. We will continue to search for solutions. I hope you will continue to pray with me to protect our precious children.