Transcripts For CSPAN Senate Homeland Security Committee Hearing On Gun Violence And School Safety 20240714

Witnesses for taking the time for your testimony. And in particular i want to give a shout out to max and tom and their families and the other families of the tragedies or attending here and for just your unbelievable dedication, turning your tragedy into hopefully some positive action that temperament tragedy or other families, its just remarkable what so many of the families have done in reaction to so many of these tragedies which really back to 1998 is where we really had the first directed attack. 710 shooting since columbine in 1999. Columbine, 13 people were killed. 12 students, one teacher. 20 one were injured. Sandy hook in 2012. 26 killed, two injured. Parkland, at Marjorie Stoneman douglas school, 17 killed and 17 injured. Toll ish and casualty simply unbelievable, honestly. I grew up in the 50s and 60s. We were concerned about nuclear holocaust. We would hold drills and tuck under our desks. We never had to worry about somebody entering our school and opening fire. This is a tragedy in terms of lives lost, people injured, families destroyed. Its a tragedy from the standpoint of the psychological effect on our nation, our states, schools, children, families. Hoping this hearing will be about is, take a look at the thoughtful recommendations of so many of these commissions that have been established afterwards. Parents andp of families that have experienced the tragedies. To what extent of these recommendations, these commonsense recommendations, have they been committed . What is the hold up . What can we do to make sure that we can take some of these actions as ale first step . Mitigate the casualties when one of these attacks occurs. Forward, what i want to result from this hearing to be is, lets take a look at all of the recommendations. Lets find out what is common. What do we agree on . That is a something this committee is good on. This committee is good at doing is identify a problem, what we agree on . What is a common sense solution that we agree on . Differences set aside. They can be brought up when its possible to do so. What are the most effective actions that we can take that we agree on . What are the fastest and easiest to implement . Part of that equation will be, whats the most costeffective . 9 11, the most costeffective and effective action taken, we hardened the door cockpit door. We spend billions but the most effective things, we hardened the cockpit door. Lets make sure in schools, we are at least doing that. Do. Ally this committee doesnt have a whole lot of legislative jurisdiction. In this space, there may be some we can consider. We want to do everything we can do as part of this committee to highlight the issue and examine these recommendations. I will turn it over to senator peters. Thank you, mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing today. This is an extremely important and difficult conversation. Theres no question that schools must be safe places for children to learn and grow. Lost in ale life School Shooting is an unspeakable tragedy. As adults and policymakers, our number one responsibility is to protect our children. We are failing. I want to recognize the many survivors we have with us today, especially mr. Royer, for joining us today as witnesses. Thank you for your courage and action. Thent begin to grasp incomprehensible pain of losing a child to gun violence. I know that i must and we must honor the memory of those who are no longer with us by taking action to stop these preventable tragedies. Im grateful to you both and to the sheriff for helping the committee better understand how we can protect children in our schools and work towards ensuring that no other families have to endure the loss of a loved one to senseless violence in schools. Strengthening safety in our schools is not a partisan issue. I look forward to a productive discussion on the actions we can take to make School Campuses more secure, improve First Responders capabilities in an emergency, and stop the shootings before they ever happen. Todays conversation will be about solutions. We want to leave here with a clear roadmap for addressing this problem. We cant forget exactly who we are doing this for. Luke, for the hundreds of children killed or injured in their schools. For the families, students, teachers, and staff whose worlds have been irrevocably changed by this violence. And for the millions of students who will be entering classrooms this fall. Thank you for being here. I look forward to your testimony and discussion. My office has received over 32 letters of support for our discussion today on a wide variety of topics that i would like to enter into our official record. Without objection. We have a letter from senator rubio theyll be entered into the record as well. I want to recognize the theesentative ted deutch, congressman in parkland, florida. We offer all of you are condolences and recognize how inadequate that is. We have a unique situation here. Your former governor, who established this commission and appointed many of you to be involved, is here. Senator scott would like to them say a few words. Ive asked him to read the list of those killed in the parkland shooting. We will have a moment of silence after he does that. Thank senator peters for doing this. Said is actually true in this committee. People Work Together. Theres a lot of tough issues to deal with. Theres not a more important issue than the safety of our kids and grandkids. I have six grandsons and i think about their safety all the time. I want to thank all the witnesses for being here today. This isnt an easy discussion. It wasnt easy to deal with the aftermath. It is nothing like what these families have gone through. This february marks the oneyear anniversary of the shooting that claimed 17 innocent victims. Theres no data that goes by where i dont think about that day. One thing that has happened since then is many families i have spent time with. Every day, you still feel their pain. I would like to thank the family, students, and loved ones of the victims were here today. Max and tom, gina, phil, debbie. I think all of you for being here. Lets go through a little background. Everybody has a copy of this. They gave me a copy of this this morning. You can see the pictures of these kids. In the last year and a half, you get to know them just by the stories you here. Alex was 14 years old. He played trombone in the band. He was a very vocal and served on the High School Public safety commission. Luke was only 15. He was a sweet young man who loved playing sports. A lot of these parents his parents have been leading efforts to make change. When we signed the marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public safety act into law, she was there with me. Tony, stand up so they recognize you. Tonys daughter genia gina was 14. She was a member of the schools Winter Garden she was a great dancer with an infectious smile make friends everywhere she went. Of standhe president parkland, an organization founded by the parents of the victims. I attended some of their funerals. Your heart goes out to all of them. Gina is toms wife. They are a sweet family. Thank you for being here. Shes become a good friend of my chief of staff. Philip, stand up. His daughter was a dedicated student who wanted to become a medical researcher and find the cure for als. She was 16 years old. Phils wife has been an incredible activist nationwide. Thank you for being here. Debbies husband chris was a loving father and United States veteran. He served as the Athletic Director and wrestling coach. He made an impact on lives of so many of the students. Within thelives on flood exposure or ship which helps further the education of student athletes. Its a story about what chris with norun a danger weapon or anything to save these kids. Its remarkable. Things for being here. Let me read off the rest of the names. Its always been hard. Alyssa alhadeff. Scott beigel. Martin duque. Jaime guttenberg. Joaquin oliver. Alaina petty. I met her family. After we had hurricane irma, her his to mes going on mission. They are mormons. They were working in Everglades City to do cleanup. I remember meeting them before this ever happened. Meadow pollack. Youve seen his dad a lot on television. Peter wang. Every one of these families, its a horrible story. Wonderful family members, their lives have been changed forever. Theres no question we have to figure out how to change this. The remarkable strength and dedication you all have shown in the aftermath of such an unspeakable tragedy is inspiring. Many times,n solutions after tragedy get lost in politics. Theres a lot of reasons why this happened. ,e cut through that in florida hopeful we can continue to Work Together to make our schools safer. Sheriff, weve got great Law Enforcement officers in our state. The sheriff is somebody i met right after i got elected in 2010. Very dedicated as a member of the statewide ships association. Dedicated in getting good legislation passed. What we did was put together a group of, right after it happened, we put together a group of people that worked together. One group was educated. One group was Mental Health. One group was Law Enforcement. We came up with what we thought we should do. We made a proposal. Fortunately, we were in session. We got some weeks, good legislation passed. The sheriff has a great family. He has shown incredibly incredible leadership when we needed it. Its because of people like bob that we have a lower firearm rate in our state. You are supposed to brag as governor. We did 1. 7 million jobs. Number one higher education. We worked together to pass the Public Safety act. Is that this never ever happens again. Toestablished the Commission Work toward and if i issues. They did an incredible job. The sheriff led it. We had 50 people or so on it. Max and another parent served on the commission. This commission did a good job. They put out good information. Things thatll doing will have a positive impact. I think what you will hear today, you will hear about people that have gone above and beyond to try to change things. Unfortunately, you cant bring back these lives. Us,ink everyone of especially when we think about this, we think about our children and grandchildren. We dont want this to happen again in our country. Its important that all of us take responsibility. I was disheartened by the recent report from the grand jury on the progress of implementation of Safety Measures by certain schools. Its unbelievably disappointing when we have talked about what we need to do and you see people that, for whatever reason, dont take this seriously. They dont think it will ever happen after school. Im sending a letter to School Superintendents and administrators of those schools demanding action. Im disappointed in the response but im confident that we are not going to stop fighting. The writing is going to happen. Right thing is going to happen. I have to good Armed Services for a mandatory meeting. Thank you for being here. Thank you for your testimony. I think every senator up here cares deeply that this doesnt happen again. Thank you. It would be appropriate to have a moment of silence in memory of those who have lost their lives and for those whose lives have been forever altered by these tragedies. Thank you. Of thise Tradition Committee to swear and witnesses. Stand and raise your hand. Do you swear that the testimony you give before this committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so hope you got god . Thank you. There are a lot of Computing Committee mission meetings. Dont take that as a sign of disrespect. Thats how this place works. Witnesses, max schecter. The cofounder and ceo of safe schools for alex. Hes advocated for improved School Safety at the highest levels of federal government ever since his son was killed. I was talking to max before the hearing. He has a rap sheet. If you see the list of his activities since he lost his son, its unbelievable how much time and energy he has devoted to this. We look forward to your testimony. Thank you. My son alex was one of 17 people that were brutally murdered at marjory Stoneman Douglas high school last year. After i buried my son, my next priority was to make sure my other three children were safe in their schools. I travel the country and came to realize that in the 139,000 schools in this country, each principal has to now become an expert in door locks, access control, cameras, etc. It made no sense that each school had to go and reinvent the wheel. The idea that crystallized for me was the need to create national School Safety best practices at the federal level. Those would be housed on a clearinghouse website so that all schools had a onestop shop for all the most relevant and important School Safety information. This ideased to see highlighted in president trumps federal commission on School Safety report last year. Im extremely encouraged that the department of Homeland Security is moving forward to create this clearinghouse. They are convening their first meeting july 30 next week. We know that we cannot prevent 100 of these mass murders. We know that we could absolutely mitigate a lot of the risk to students, teachers, and staff when they do happen. Every school can do things today that can improve School Safety. Many of these things are basics that cost little or no money. You for want to commend your commitment to focusing on Practical Solutions that can save lives right now and for shining a spotlight on that through this hearing that you are holding today. There are two main reasons that National School security crisis has continued with no end in sight. The first is that we do not implement lessons we have been painfully learning for two decades. We are not being honest to parents and communities about the real situation with safety in our schools. On the first point, we do not implement Lessons Learned from dozens of incidents that have tragically taken many lives. The state of virginia is a rare exception. After the Virginia Tech massacre, the implemented threat assessment teams in all of their schools. They used the secret Service National Threat Assessment Center model and they have not had a School Shooting since. Thats why i support the eagles act. No other state besides florida has followed suit. After columbine, all responding officers were required to rapidly deploy roughly to the threat. In parkland, eight deputies waited outside for 11 minutes while children and staff were being slaughtered in their classrooms. In parkland, First Responder radios failed and were not operable. Swat teams had to resort to hand signals to avoid shooting each other because their radios failed. As a country, we havent committed to solving the communication problems. We cant force all agencies to use a single radio system. We can make it possible for them to communicate, no matter which system they are using. Hook, each school shouldve train their students and staff how to respond to active shooters. Many did not. Year, the 2017 school marjory Stoneman Douglas high school did not hold a single code red drill. Students and staff did not know what to do when the murderer started firing and ar15 into classrooms and killing their classmates. No staff member called a code red for three minutes. By then, all 17 people were dead, including my little boy. , mostcond set reality people dont realize that schools are not being truthful about the violence on their campus. Douglas stoneman reported to the state zero bullying, zero harassment, zero trespassing incidents and many others. Its not just Broward County. This is pervasive across the entire country. The result is a false sense of security which leads to complacency and in implementing School Safety best practices. On college cap says, the query penalties financial for inaccurate reporting of campus crime statistics. In k12, theres no such requirement. When you go online to look at school ratings, many of them including Marjorie Stoneman douglas have an a rating. Academics are important. If children do not come home to their families and staff dont, nothing else matters. Has nothing to do with safety of the institution. There is School Safety Rating System currently to inform parents and teachers of whether or not their school has implemented the best practices to prevent and mitigate the number of casualties during the next school attack. Schools should not be able to get an a rating if they never held a code red drill for the entire school year. They should not be rewarded if they did not train their teachers and staff what to do during inactive assailant emergency. If the School Safety Rating System existed, it would influence change nationwide. Industrys Rating System has improved car safety and reduced fatalities. Before you buy a car, you review their safety. For parents, theres nothing. No way to know if your child school is safe or not. Its been 20 years since columbine. Children continue to be murdered in their classrooms. We know the next school mass murderer is already out there. The next gun that he will use is already out there. Its not a question of if, its a question of when. We know what can be done to prevent it. We know what must be done to mitigate the risks of more lives being lost. I hope this committee will help us get us where we need to be. I thank you for your commitment. I look forward to your questions. Thank you. Our next witness is tom moyer. Of anves as the treasurer organization which advocates for Public Safety reports. It was formed by the parents of those killed in the Marjorie Stoneman douglas attack. Good morning. Thank you for having me here today. Treasurersury of a National Association of families for safe schools. It was founded by the families of the children murdered in the Parkland School massacre. Im here on behalf of our organization today. We are fundamentally nonpartisan. The safety of our kids and teachers is not a political issue. We are willing to work with anyone who shares our goal for safe schools. We appreciate your decision to holding this hearing today. Im here because i lost my longest son youngest son. He was one of the 17 souls murdered in parkland. My son was one of the first to die. The police tell me he felt the impact of the bullet before he heard the shots. One moment he standing outside of a classroom, looking forward to the end of the school day. The next moment, hes unable to move and dying. Many times ive wondered what his last thoughts were. Think about my wife who gave birth to luke 15 years earlier. Had tont watched watch the casket closed on her youngest son. There are 16 others just like this story. The murder of spouses and children is devastating. Our families are forever changed. Our community is forever changed. The trauma haunts all the survivors. Our experience in parkland has led us to conclude there is no single solution that can solve this complex problem. Thats why we advocate for three key goals. Securing the School Campus, improving Mental Health screening and support programs, and responsible firearms ownership. The first element of our platform is bringing people together around the idea of securing the School Campus. Our schools need best practices that they can use as a tool. Our country needs federal minimum School Safety standards, such as a single point of entry on a School Campus. We need to explore federal funding for School Security enhancements through National Interest for two bills. The next element of our platform is improved Mental Health screening and support programs. We need funding to provoke that promote suicide intervention programs. More than two thirds of mass shooters are suicidal. When the congressional action to schools andtion so Mental Health professionals can share information. My sons killer was known to the school, the sheriffs office. Was known as schools and Mental Health professionals can share an angry, violent, and potentially dangerous person. Human beings other are dead because these agencies never shared information. They never connected the dots. In order to address these potential risks, we have to Fund Research into threat assessment tools and practices. The eagles act does exactly that. We urge you to support and act on that legislation. The last component of our platform is responsible firearms ownership. Keep armsnd ways to out of the hands of those who should not have them. This starts with enforcement of existing laws. Another important step in states save storage of firearms at home. An additional tool is extreme Risk Protection orders. That empowers family members or Law Enforcement to get a court order to temporarily remove firearms from potentially dangerous situations. We need comprehensive background checks including for sales that occur online. Can stem theoals tide on School Shootings. Last year, we took first steps on School Safety with a bipartisan passage of the stop School Violence act. Although we dont agree with all of its recommendations, the report from the federal commission on School Safety was one of our governments most comprehensive pieces on School Safety ever. This is not an academic discussion. Kids and teachers have been dying. School starts in less than two months. Nows the time to build on the progress we made last year. Dont let another anniversary of my sons death pass without concrete steps towards making our kids and teachers safe in school. Thank you for the opportunity to appear today. We appreciate your decision to hold his hearing. Thank you. Bobnext witness is mr. Kateri. He has served as sheriff since 2011. He serves as Vice President of the board of Sheriffs Association of the major county sheriffs of america. Rick scott appointed him to serve as the chair of the marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public safety commission. Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to appear today and share some thoughts about School Safety. For the last 60 months, i chaired the Public Safety commission. We submitted a 500 page report to the legislature regarding what happened on february 14, 2018. We made recommendations on how to approve improve School Safety. Its debatable whether the incident was entirely avoidable. What is not debatable is whether the horror could of been mitigated. The shooting did not have to be as bad as it was. In three were shot minutes and 51 seconds and building 12 of the campus. Shot in onehose minute and 44 seconds on the first floor alone. Mr. Intervention opportunities, ineffective safety on this part of the school, and an ineffective Law Enforcement response contributed to the tragedy. Public schools do not have an active shooter response policy. There had been no active shooter drills on the campus in the year before the shooting. Hour ofd been only one training for school staff. That occurred a few weeks before the shooting. There had been no formal training for the students. Gates on the campus were left open and unattended. Building and classroom doors were left unlocked. Teachers and staff lacked adequate Communication Infrastructure. Killedoter shot and or all but two of his victims memberthe first staff called a code red to alert others of the shooting that was occurring. People did not know what to do or how to do it because there were no policies, member drills, and little training. Keep in mind, this was the state of School Security in Broward County, the Second Largest School District in the thirdlargest state, 19 years after columbine. As for the Law Enforcement response, the schools sro stood by outside, hiding in a place of personal safety while the shooter killed 10 people. The sro never went into the building that day and he hit for 48 minutes before leaving the area. Several other sheriffs deputies stood by outside the school, despite hearing gunshots. They did not enter the school. And several deputies have been fired. The sro has been criminally charged for his inaction. Weve made improvements on School Safety. We have a ways to go. Much of the talk of the day is on prevention. The immediate emphasis must be on harm mitigation. Theres a difference between the two. The hard thing to say but its a reality. It will happen again. Is,most pressing question what are we doing differently today to drive a different outcome . We must have a different outcome. 34 people shot or killed in three minutes and 51 seconds is an example. Today, there is not full compliance to the laws in florida and the best practices to make our schools safe. I dont believe that this void is limited only to florida schools. The noncompliance is caused by complacency and an attitude that it cant happen here. We are 20 years postcolumbine. The School District, ground zero for this mass killing, just passed its first ever active shooter response policy in february of 2019. It took more than a year after the Stoneman Douglas shooting for the Broward County School District to a neck that policy. Thats an acceptable. There has to be a sense of urgency. A focus on the main tenets of harm mitigation. Identifying the threat, communicating the threat, and reacting to the threat. All schools must have effective active shooter response training. Have adequate Communication Infrastructure so that all students and staff can receive messages of a threat. There must be regularly conducted drills so they know how best to react. We cannot be here 20 years from voids inng about the the most basic concepts of School Safety that shouldve been implement it years ago. Most of these basic School Strategies cost little to nothing to implement. They only require the will of a decisionmaker to make sure it happens. That has not occurred across the board. There has to be accountability for those not implementing the basic School Safety necessities. I encourage you to use your power and require any School District receiving federal funding to demonstrate compliance with basic safety components as a requirement for receiving federal money. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. I look forward to fleshing out how we can do a better job of making sure that our kids are a safe as they can be in our nations schools. Parents have a right to expect that when they send their skits does kids to school in the morning, i come home alive in the afternoon. Thank you. Our final witness is the Senior Program area director for childs trends. She serves as a Senior Advisor to federal goal Technical Assistance. She directed the federal initiative on bullying prevention at the u. S. Department of education. Thank you. Thank you for holding this important hearing twice in a five ways to keep students safe in school. I cannot imagine the pain of losing a child or surviving a School Shooting. My thet, i share commitment to ensure our schools are safe. The tragedy at partly portland shopper system. We must do more. Ive dedicated my career to identifying evidencebased strategies to improve School Health and safety. I offer three recommendations. Maintain School Safety initiatives that encourage communities to address the full spectrum of issues that contribute to School Violence. To keep students safe at school, we must prioritize their overall wellbeing. Violenceg school requires an investment in building a positive School Climate as well as skills to form healthy relationships. Areral federal investments built upon this research and showed significant improvements in school Safety Measures. Beyond competitive grant haveams, schools fundamentally shifted towards making Student Wellness a priority. An indicator of School Quality and Student Success and funding the Student Success and academic enrichment program. School violence has gone down over the past 20 years. Significantly decreased. Group, the percentage of physical fights on School Properties decreased. Its more difficult to ascertain a trend in School Shooting incidents because they are statistically rare occurrences. Progress has been made. Theres much more we can do. No community should never have to experience a School Shooting. Three movements are bringing us closer to the school. Increased awareness of the prevalence of Adverse Childhood Experiences and their potential for resulting trauma. Further integration of social, emotional, and academic learning. The bridging of school and Community Resources through integrated student support. My second recommendation is to limit strategies that could harm students and communities. Him him seem logical that adding Security Technology would prevent disclosure in. The research we have is mixed. Security measures are designed to keep the bad guys out. History shows us that the vast majority of School Shootings are perpetrated by current students at the school. Students who know the security procedures as well as the blind spots. The effectiveness of schoolbased Law Enforcement, access control, medical doctors detectors has not been well researched. We know that many schools have experienced active shooter incidents even with security members that measures in place. Certain forms of security may help. These include strategies such as identification procedures or lockdown drills. They are different than active shooter drills. Evidence suggests that more intensive security measures can have unintended consequences including increased levels of fear, decreased perceptions of School Safety, increased student referral to the criminal Justice System for minor offenses, particularly for low income students. Active shooter drills are concerning. They often use actors to betray a School Shooter using realistic guns and plastic bullets. We do not know whether these drills work. Arearchers and educators raising concerns that such drills may traumatize the School Community or desensitize students to the seriousness of an attack. Aboutd to know much more these security measures before risking our childrens wellbeing. Is toal recommendation ensure mechanisms to assess the impact of School Safety savages. Strategies. Understandlows us to whether finite resources are being spent effectively and where improvements can be made. Were reallocated away from copperheads of School Safety initiatives out of the National Institute of justice, the only dedicated funding stream to support School Safety research. Such research, we will continue to debate the issues raised today. Our children go to school and learn. When our children are afraid, and when we tell them they it becomesfraid, harder for them to learn. Making schools safe is not about turning schools into fortresses. Our Children Safety is paramount. That safety must start from within the school itself. Trustt prioritize mutual and provide the social, emotional, and academic support that prevents violence and helps our kids thrive. Thank you. Im going to yield my question slot to senator scott. Thank you for being here. Talking about this. Recognize i want to is hunter holick. He lost his sister, meadow, who was 18. Died trying to save another student. Thank you for being here. What you think is the most important take away from your commission . It was it didnt have to be as bad as it was. It couldve been mitigated if there wasnt complacency. If people had done what they shouldve and learned lessons from what has happened 20 years ago. The Law Enforcement response was ineffective. When you have a district that had done no drills, had done one minimal training, people didnt know what to do or how to do it. It was shocking to us as we uncovered the fact and evidence. And that there is still too much complacency and not enough being done. They say they take it seriously. The proof is in the pudding. The proof is in the action. To this day, theres not enough being done. It wasnt until the week before it took them a year to past inactive tutor and active shooter policy. You have districts that are not complying with the law to have a safe School Officer in every campus. Schools dont have threat assessment teams. The lack of compliance is the most shocking and appalling to me that we uncovered. You have 67 School District in florida. I dont know if every state is set up this way. Every county has an elected school board. They have a lot of economy. Autonomy. Half are appointed by the school board. They have a lot of autonomy. Everything that we worked hard to get passed has to get implemented locally. What is your experience so far . Who is the best, who is your biggest disappointment in forget coming up with the right ideas. There are some that are doing well. Wellhat i think is doing was pensacola. They have stepped up. Well the superintendent gets it. They have implement to the right policies and procedures. We have other counties, the ones that are most problematic where we are seeing the most voids would be in south florida. Broward, palm beach. There are some others. ,p until a couple months ago Orange County was noncompliant. Passedlegislation we required there be a Public Safety officer at every school. What were they doing . Its a requirement of state law. We provided funding for this. Governor and legislature, you provided 67 million. The law said that there has to be a sign assigned to every School Campus a safe School Officer. They interpreted the word a signed onmean paper and they dont have to be here. This is the type of manipulation its maddening. Its upsetting. What is the legislative body supposed to do . Was thatthe intent there be a good guy with the gun on every campus. You have lawyers who are part of the problem. I say that as a lawyer. They are not doing a service to the people they are representing when they interpret words and go through these machinations. Parents. One of these they had one deputy for six campuses because they didnt follow the law. Its not right. This is the type of attitude that has to change. Iftalk about the fact they had done a active shooting , where would students have gone when they knew there was a shooter in the room . Where did the students go . Its so simple. They had not identified any of the safe spaces, hard corners and classrooms. The teachers and staff didnt know what to do or how to do it. To getse that did try the kids into those safe spaces in the classrooms, they were full of stuff. Bookshelves, desks, immovable objects. Its a hard thing to say. Died on the line because they couldnt get into the hard corners because they were being pushed out by others because they were so full. There were two kids who were unable to get into one of those safe areas and they were hiding behind a tv set and a filing cabinet. Tv sets in filing cabinets dont stop ar15 rounds. Both those kids are deceased. If they have been able to get into those safe areas, this harm wouldve been in mitigated. The shooter never went in to anyone classroom. He only shot people he could see , and hallways. When he looked through the doors and saw people, he shot them. If they were in the hard corners it worked on the second floor. He didnt shoot or kill anybody on the second floor because they had an opportunity to respond appropriately. What we teach works. The first floor, 24 people. Third floor, 10 people. Second floor, nobody. Where it is and cemented, it works. By the third floor, did they know there was a shooter . How long had he been there . Initiallyrd floor treated it as a fire drill. Staff, it with the showed them photos. If anybody sees the photos of the third floor, it was walltowall, shoulder to shoulder kids. Nobody communicated anything to them. The Fire Suppression system was activated. Nobody communicated. The first floor got caught up guard off guard. He had over 200 ar15 rounds left. It was walltowall, shoulder to shoulder kids. We be having a much different discussion. It would be worse than vegas. Because of the lack of communication and training, because of the lack of so much, it was as bad as this. It couldve been worse. I know my time is up. Is, whetherrating the fbi had two instances before this happened. I was governor for eight years. Ad five Mass Shootings in every case, the fbi had prior warning. Who has been held accountable at the fbi for not passing on this to the miami office . Have you heard of anybody being held accountable . No. Nobody . All they had to do was pass it on. One phone call, send me mail. And email. Its disgusting. How do we know if anything has changed . Well. Thanks for being here. Thank you. Senator peters. Thank you for all of your testimony. In your testimony, you stated that School Shootings are the extreme end of the continuum of violence. I want to talk about the evidence behind that statement as we try to drill down on evidencebased solutions. What does the data tell us about who the perpetrators of School Shootings are likely to be . There is no one profile of a School Shooter. Is coming directly from the fbi, having examined several of the previous School Shooting incidents. They have been popular, also loners. They have been female and male. Necessarily say that there is any one particular profile that is going to lead to someone becoming a School Shooter. There are warning signs and risks. Those include the individual as well as the contextual risks towards School Violence. We know that when communities have increased levels of trust, students are not likely to bring weapons to school. They are much more likely to report to School Officials when they suspect there is a threat from one of their peers. This is why its so important for us to focus in on building a positive School Climate as a way for prevention. I am not saying that we should not invest in School Security measures. I think thats only one part of a much broader effort to actually create safe schools. We need to make sure that, as we are implementing safe school measures, that they are not going to cause harm toward children. Are these perpetrators outsiders or folks from within the school . The vast majority of School Shooters have come from within the school. Either current students or former students. These are students who would likely know exactly what the school is doing for School Security measures. If they are determined to do something at the school, they would find a way around that. Its so important for us to focus on prevention as well as securing our schools. If they are from the school and they know Safety Measures or drills, how do we Design Systems . What is your recommendation . We need to continue doing things to help secure the school. Really invest in actually trying to get to the root causes of the violence. We need to help students identify challenges and provide support. Thats the theory behind threat assessment. It says that when there is a viable threat, we need to identify what the challenges are and find the supports that are going to prevent that student from carrying out those threats. Knowledge like to your vision and the work in the establishment of a federal clearinghouse for best practices that will benefit all schools. I appreciate that. The department of Homeland Security will be releasing this report in the next few months. Hopefully sooner rather than later. As thee you watching for dhs implements this clearinghouse . Are there aspects that you believe are most critical for us . Yes. On july 30 it will be our first meeting. We are inviting over 40 dozen different stakeholders from all aspects. Mental health, Law Enforcement, superintendent. All the stakeholders need to be at the table so we can come up with national School Safety best practices. Solutionscommon sense , Lessons Learned that came out of columbine and parkland that need to be implemented. If we have everybody agreeing hoping once wem establish these best practices, it will be put up on a federal website. That will be implement it through all states and into School District across the country. Thats my main concern. That theo ensure School District adoptees best practices as soon as possible. We cannot let another day go by where Lessons Learned that will save and mitigate lives and prevent school tragedies dont get them limited. Have theseonce we best practices, they will be tied to the grant dollars. Thats a major problem right now. Broward county got a half 1 million to implement analytic cameras last year. A formalt even have active assailant response policy. Developed tears. Tier one would be lowcost measures that every school commencement, no matter if its a school in iowa or miami. They should implement those. Tears to and three would be more expensive. Longerterm implementation. A school should not be implementing a tear for strategy , analytic cameras, if they havent done the basics. A they havent installed formal active assailant response policy. Once we have those best practices, they need to be tied to grant dollars to ensure compliance. Thank you. You discussed the role that u. S. Secret services National Threat Assessment Center has played in advancing research used by threat assessment teams. What role should threat assessment teams play in the overall safety landscape . I think its a pretty central role. Its one of the prevention measures. Situation, the shooter had around 69 interactions to with the school. He had 21 calls to the police. Numerous sessions with a local Mental Health agency. Ifant help but think, months or years before someone had done a threat assessment on this shooter, my son would still be here. Its important to step in and try to help those individuals. But also, if you cant, know who they are and deal with them appropriately. Thank you. Would you like to add anything . Gap. Absolutely. Its critical. We have identified a major gap with these information silos. You had this violent individual from age three that had a tremendous amount of disciplinary action inside the school. You had all these lawenforcement interactions. These were two silos that were never connected. These threat assessment teams that were instituted after Virginia Tech need to sit down and be porac if proactive. I would recommend threat assessment teams in every state, every school. They will save lives. Thats why i support the eagles act, which will reauthorize the National Threat Assessment Center inside secret service. Also the tax act as well. Thank you. Senator hassan . Thank you. I want to thank all of todays witnesses for taking the time to speak with us and to help ensure that our children are protected as we make our schools safer. A special thank you to mr. Schechter for your tireless efforts to honor your children and to protect and support all of our children. To all of the other family members who are here today, who have lost their loved ones, i think you as well for being here and for adding your voices and presence and witness. I would like to start with a question. I share your view that we need to knowledge that School Shootings pose a very real that impacts communities nationwide and we need to focus on what we can do to protect students and prepare them for the unimaginable. I became governor of New Hampshire shortly after the horror of the sandy hook shooting and in New Hampshire, we took action, the state department of safety worked 200 expand initiatives including a statewide initiative to improve School Emergency notification systems to improve security assessments were schools and improve information sharing between schools and First Responders. The notification system reduced response times by allowing School Computers to connect directly with dispatch and notify Law Enforcement officers closest to the school during an emergency. The state also worked with schools to conduct security assessments to identify gaps in safety that could be addressed to i know you have talked about some of this today, but in your work through safe schools for alex, have you found these kinds of measures are important in ensuring that schools and lock local Law Enforcement are prepared . You are 100 correct. We, in our commission we did an 20 years ofthe less active shooters and what we found was the majority of these shootings are over in 45 minutes. The sheriff talks about my three minutes and 51 seconds, everyone was dead. Even though Law Enforcement will do their best to get to the scene, they are not going to get there in time to even if the sro was apus on campus courageous individual, which he was not, it took him a minute and 44 seconds and a golf cart to get to the fringe of the building. By the time that happened, 24 staff and children were shot and killed. Law enforcement will not get in there get there in time. Schoollook at the safest in america and indiana each teacher worth the key from on that told Law Enforcement what is happening and Law Enforcement had access to the cameras which Broward County refused to give to Law Enforcement. They did now but Law Enforcement did not have access to the cameras inside the school prior and in indiana once they hit that button and it suppressed if Law Enforcement can look in the school and has live actionable intelligence so knows where to go, where to send officers and interdict and stop the attack. The other critical piece we need to work on is the closest Law Enforcement officer. It should not matter if it is a state trooper or municipal officer. Whoever is closest needs to get that information and respond. Thank you for your work and i look forward to continuing to work with you and the witnesses. Mr. Hoyer, as you have discussed, we need to focus as and prevention efforts. Including increasing School Safety but recognizing the role of Mental Health and making sure that individuals who exhibit behaviors that are a threat to themselves or others do not have access to firearms and other deadly weapons. This is one of the reasons ive been a strong proponent of expanding the extreme Risk Protection orders, also called red flag laws which allow courts orders toestraining restrict access to firearms when there is evidence individuals are planning to harm themselves or others. To do this effectively, we need to make sure students now where to report suspicious activity and how to seek help. In your experience with the National Association of families receive schools, what have you found to be best practices for building a comprehensive prevention approach that ensures students experiencing a Mental Health crisis receive the help they need and are kept the safest possible . It starts with something really simple. One of the things were advocating for is suicide prevention. Proven, offtheshelf programs. Columbia protocol is one. They used we call the late house project created a fairly simple one card, six questions, tells you the question and how to respond to the answer anything where i will sit here or stay with you until someone comes to help. It empowers people. Members, andamily friends, getting people to seek help. Advocating funding the promotion of those already proven programs. Friends at sandy hook have a hello. , start with the programs have existed for a while. The one that columbia at columbia protocol was able minute, they saw a 22 reduction in suicide. I think that starting there, starting with something simple, easy to implement would be a first step to implementing an overall competence of program which will have to include Mental Health, talking with the school, possibly the police, the threat assessment we were talking about. I am concerned with trauma experienced by students and teaching teachers during trainings and the disproportionate impact on students of color and students experiencing disabilities. Can you share concerns with active shooter drills and how heartening efforts could result in disproportionate impact of certain students. We have to balance these issues and we want to make our school safe, but if you can help us understand what those best practices might look like and how we can avoid trauma to students, that would be helpful. Absolutely. There have not been evaluations of these active shooter drills that are what folks call my multioption. These drills can often be very realistic such that teachers have reported in media, without rigorous evaluation is the best we have at the moment, they have been absolutely traumatized by saying a colleague get shot by plastic bullets, saying this was more traumatizing than it was training. In terms of disparities, we have to be careful and thinking about both staffing and impact of staffing. It comes to when School Resource officers. We know that School Resource officers when they are present and involved in the discipline at school will drive up suspension expulsion and criminal justice referrals from minor met nonviolent offenses. We know there is extensive disparities for students and students of color in receiving such discipline. We have to be careful when we are recommending these that we consider these unintended consequences. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Andhank you, mr. Chairman ranking member. I want to thank senator scotts work in bringing you here today. About how you must communityrents, members, or students and children and families and onndchildren, the impact what you experienced at the personal level, it has an impact on all of us. Imagine what you have gone through. I never want another family to go through which any of these families have gone through and i hope sincerely we can work on honoring the loss of your most precious loved ones. By our action in future. And so i agree with the panel that we have to emphasize multimodel approaches to address this issue. It is not just one thing, it is many things. Each incident is going to be different. Both have to foster safe and supportive learning environments for all students. You have to have an adequate number of school east Mental Health professionals to help students and crisis, suicidal, angry, whatever that is. You cant learn if you dont feel safe. Are the other students who may be scared of someone they see has issues. Association of schools, they recommend a ratio toone psychologist every 500 700 students. We have one to every 3000 bomb. Ts, a ticking time they work with the School Working closely with state legislatures. Senate bill that requires the state board of education to develop recommendations for ratios of pupils to specialized support nurses, counselors, social workers, to develop a Strategic Plan to achieve those ratios. I am asking that a letter from the school of psychologists be entered into the reckon. Without objection. Thank you. This multimodal approach, how do you think student schools can work to identify and support students needing more intensive interventions to ensure they receive the appropriate attention before, godfrey for bed god forbid, a tragedy happens . And could you speak to federal support for guidance and funding to support these efforts because that is what we can do. Absolutely. In terms of identifying students, i subscribe to a Public Health model. Universal approaches, things like bringing in prevention programs can reach 80 of our students. About 15 need a little more intensive support and 5 need targeted intervention. All we institute these twotiered systems of support, we can help identify those students are data collection, bringing in teams that are not just Law Enforcement but Mental Health teachers to understand and identify their challenges. One thing i want to flag is it is not just about identifying and eliminating a threat, it is grounded in support. It is grounded in lets find a way to help this student so they can succeed, not just to prevent a tragedy. In terms of federal support we have seen over the course of the 20 years starting with response to columbine a series of investments the government made in School Safety that have focused on prevention. The safe schools, healthy students initiative, the safe and Supportive Schools Grant Program in 2010, these help to schools and we saw significant reductions in School Safety indicators, of School Violence indicators as a result. They are limited. Results ofsee the what is going to come from them. We have invested invested in title iv funding. Covers ants program whole host of things, not just violence prevention. When students are deciding they may not the investing. Federal and support and guidance where the funds would be best prioritizes important. Could you speak about National Guidelines and standards for School Staffing and the evidence behind needing these specialized staff . Absolutely. One thing i would flag is it is not just an underrepresentation of School Psychologists and other support personnel, it is a desperate representation. We know the majority of schools are more likely to have a blackofficer schools are more likely to have a resource officer. When you are when youre resource is a School Resource officer and not have a Mental Health professional that is not where your default eyes. We have to talent the need for insurance with Mental Health professionals. We have to increase across the board. Want to talk about what the senator talked about the trauma on students just going through these drills for you and it is frightening to come home especially if you have an elementary school, preschoolers are having drills. The impact of that is great. Got for bed there is a tragedy. What is the impact Going Forward on the students, the teachers, people have to continue to not haveck to that school but to go back to some school, go back to their profession, how do we support people who have been through a horrific event like this . We need to invest in different approaches. Acknowledging trauma and finding individualized ways to help support that person to feel comfortable. There is no one size fits all model. It will depend on the community as well as individuals. Not everyone response to traumatic events the same way. We talk a lot about Adverse Childhood Experiences as a driver of trauma but not every experiencing trauma. We have to be careful that we are not labeling a childs physical a childs experience. Tailor this to each individual. I appreciate your testimony and i think an approach with Mental Health and School Safety and hard and soft ways is the way we move forward. My time is up. Thank you. And want to start with that surprised me to hear. In parkland, there was not controlled access. I visit schools all the time and there is only one point of entry. It is hard for me to get in and hard for most businesses. Is that common in florida, was that not implemented . I asked my colleagues, do you have one point of entry in your schools . [applause] it is inconsistent. It is also how it is implemented. At the Stoneman Douglas campus, here is the practice. They opened the gates for arival time, 5 30 a. M. For 7 40 a. M. School start time. They open the gates at 2 15 p. M. Four at 2 40 p. M. Dismissal and when the gates were opened they were not staffed. We asked during investigation why, it is the way we have always done it. Why bother having closed and locked gates because the majority of these in the last 20 years, there have been 46 targeted attacks, 43 were done by insiders. Situation, the shooter exploited it. He knew the gate would be open. He arrived at 2 19 p. M. , the gate was open at 2 15 p. M. When there are gates if they are not staffed, if you dont have someone standing there the has the adequate communication devices or others it is useless. It is inconsistent. It is Getting Better in some places but there are a lot of point area controlled controlled entry would be tier one action, correct . It depends. In florida, Stoneman Douglas is a large campus, there is 13 buildings. A lot of the schools around the country, in one building, it is easier to have a single point of entry to much have a visitor vestibule or a mantra. Gasman trap. A man trap. Sick size, we have these massive schools versus go single roomrs ago, schoolhouses, i am not suggesting we go back. There is somewhat of a Movement Toward that way. I think these massive schools are dehumanizing in many respects. It is easy to understand how people, kids get lost. That type ofand thing. Can you comment on large school sizes and is that part of the solution to go toward small school sizes again . We should do more research into that. The data is that there is not necessarily a significant difference in the rates of violence. In part because it depends on the investment each school makes into safety and climate. When it comes to bullying as you mentioned, we know that there is not a correlation between school size and weight of bullying. Rates of bullying. And want to go to parkland. Is hiss remarkable problems were known. When you talked about modifications to relax and relaxation, clarification of hipaa. To whats prevent extent was it both . A combination. It has been around for 40 years, it has not been updated. Update that. To recently enacted. As far as both of those laws, they are overly applied by the people who are charged with interpreting them and applying them and the exceptions are not is understood as they need to be. There is a lot of room to do more training, to have more effective to medication so those dots can be connected area there are questions about behavioral threat assessment teams. There is good as the information they receive. If you are not receiving comprehensive information that will tell the whole story, they will not make a good decision. That information sharing in having the laws that allow that are finally important. In our system of justice, innocent till Proven Guilty is a bedrock principle. The do you do with [inaudible] it is true. They are not guilty but there are things that can be done. The behavioral threat assessment teams, i take it a step further or maybe a step differently and the threat assessment process. If we wait till we have threats, we waited too long. We needed to get it back here where there are behavioral indicators of concern and we need to catch it before it manifests as a threat so that something can be done. One of the places that is lacking is in care coordination. You have schoolbased providers and private providers and many of these kids are under multiple treatment points. The needs to be more coordinated care and catch it earlier. Identifying the threat and doing something about it. There was a campus monitor, a security person, he saw the shooter walked through the gate unfettered. It took the shooter a minute and himeconds you identified and said, that is crazy boy and he is carrying a rifle back. He did nothing about it. This is where the importance of harm mitigation is and be able and communicate a threat. If they dont know how to identify it there is nothing to indicate. He saw crazy boy carrying a rifle back bag. People could not react. It is a combination of things that have to be done. And want to follow it i want to follow up on what senator scott was talking about. I want to know more. What is the profile of a School Safety officer, are they formerd be law armed, military . A the requirement is to have safety School Officer. A guardian is not a Law Enforcement officer but someone who goes through a rigorous background in green and screening process and is that person on campus who is authorized under the law to for that active a sale and event . The guardians and it could be School Employees who perform it as a collateral responsibility so they could . The Athletic Director, they could be the counselor, the principal, or someone that is dedicated for that role. Allocated money. What happened to the money . What was it used for . It is still sitting there. In last years budget, they state allocated 67 million and the legislature rolled it over again. The 67 million that was allocated, there is 50 million of it, probably more still sitting there that is available. To implement the guardian program. Skills schools did not take the money and reallocate it. Was the resistance to having an armed individual, where was there that political argument . Yes. The resistance was to the guardians. They wanted only cops. The reality of it is that cannot happen. First and foremost, in one of the most pressing challenges we have his recruitment and retention. In florida there are 1500 openings. There are 4000 schools and half of them have cops. Where we want to get 3500 cops question market does not work. You have to use alternatives and it comes down to what you can live with. The guardians provide a good alternative. They do not like it so they did not want it. Flew the this is a Unfunded Mandate flag which it was not. That result in him where we are. We have a shortage of Mental Health professionals as well. I will turn it over to you if you have questions. The other thing that has been highlighted in the after action report was the problems with Communications Systems and interoperability. These are not new. We hear about that across all sorts of Law Enforcement agencies. This is critical. Is a matter of life and death and you can communicate and find out where the shooter is and coordinate activities. What is your recommendation, what could we be doing today to help the Communication Systems or invest in systems, what should we be doing to do with that problem across agencies, across the country . Issues, ensuring there is radio interoperability. All Police Officers and deputy sheriffs and lawenforcement can speak to each other. That was not the case in parkland. Springs that is the city line between parkland and Coral Springs. The officers in and the deputies could not communicate because they did not have radio interoperability. They did not have each others channels installed and they were of patching system the two channels but you cant patch that which you dont have. No one on installed the Coral Springs channels so they could not attach two separate operations. That is unacceptable. Those things can be fixed in the need to be but there needs to be complete and her in the 911 centers, way too many counties in florida and across the country have multiple 911 centers in their counties. Most people think and they are wrong that when you pick up the phone and call 911, the person who is answering your call will be able to dispatch help for you. That is not true. That was not the case in this situation. The first girl who called 911 from the first floor in building 12, her call was answered by the Coral Springs police department. They set it up that 911 calls in went to the Coral Springs 911 center, not the broward shower broward sheriffs office. That call was answered in Coral Springs. The call taker waited 28 seconds before he transferred it over to the Broward County sheriffs office. It took 57 seconds to process the call where the story had to be told again. It was a minute and 24 seconds before the first dispatcher put voice to radio to dispatch the first Law Enforcement officer. A minute and 24 seconds. On the first floor, 24 people were shot and killed in one minute 44 seconds. As soon as someone calls 91 the call needs to go out immediately. Seconds matter. Finally,here is when they did dispatch a Coral Springs Police Officer, the first officer arrived in 19 seconds. And been done properly and the workflow had been set up differently, maybe someone would have gotten their earlier and could have helped. Michigan is a state rich in diversity, including folks and rural areas and urban areas and students of various racial and ethnic grounds. There is no one size fits all approaches and we need to think about that when we put together national policies. What are some of the unintended consequences we should be aware of when discussing school Safety Measures that may not look the same across Diverse Communities . It is important we recognize that it cannot be a onesizefitsall solution. I can say that the high school was i attended in arizona not laid out as a traditional high school. We had multiple buildings, something similar to marjorie stoneham. Security measures it would take to secure that school would have been different than a school here in d. C. Which are largely held in a single building. Theave to not restrict solution that we can give schools and we also need to recognize that every context will be different. In our role area it may take longer than the sheriff had mentioned for a Police Officer to reach a campus. We have to recognize that. Whateverping recommendations we give the school. Thank you. Extentnt know what there is still essential a sense of urgency and colorado. There is a high level in connecticut and florida. A sense ofreate urgency that exists right now in florida . After these tragedies . How do we find champions in states where the tragedies have not already occurred, people like the families who are involved here. How do we do that best mark i am supportive of the clearinghouse, that would have the information. We still need within the states those champions. Champion inat wisconsin. It should be incumbent on every senator to do that. Do still need people you still need people there driving this process. Are there suggestions . Absolutely. It is the mindset that needs to change that they had in parkland and san diego, that will not happen here and my schools are safe. If you had it mindset it for you from having a secure mindset. The principal at Marjorie Stallman get Marjorie Stoneman douglas was asked, if there is a threat, do you expect to know about it . s answer was his answer was no. He was not involved or interested in the security of his campus. That needs to change. It is not an easy answer. I think part of the way we do that schoolaving safety Rating System to show the public whether or not your school is safe. Aght now there is no way for parent to go online to see if their school is safe and if we can take that information and push it out to the public, i think it will put nationwide pressure on School Districts to implement the best practices that will be developed in the clearinghouse and that is one of the major ways. Also, it is the best actresses because as we travel around schools, they ask us, what can i do, show me where to go. The clearinghouse will develop those best practices and they will be on schoolsafety. Gov shortly. And want to talk about your best practices. Senator scott use the word things we had to do. Cure one is things you had to do. What is the criteria you are setting as you are setting the tier levels, do you have multiple criteria . People agreecost, as yourhat do you use criteria . Tier one would be no cost, lowcost. Active assailant response policy, were not talking about implementing massive amounts of technology and that would cost a lot of money and be a short time to government for you and also for another example is locking doors. You lock your door when you leave your house, every teacher should be teaching with a locked door. Tier two and three and four, and for making those, the Marjorie Stoneman douglas commotion leave that out , went through four and the commission, the clearinghouse will be doing that as well. Packet iwas a briefing got, i saw the summary recommendations from your commission from sandy hook and columbine and the federal commission. Four columns and recommendations which the commission was recommending, there are a fair amount of differences. There were a lot of recommendations. There were things that every school can do no matter if you are in indiana, burrell indiana or in miami. Every school should be doing these nocost, lowcost things. That is what i appreciate about the structure you brought to this, the priority in terms of what we need to be doing. A national clearinghouse. It does not require a Big Government program but it requires the government to be that clearinghouse and highlight it and what legislation ought to be produced to create that pressure and find those champions so it is driven at a local level. Schools are local issue. It just really is. You mentioned indiana. So many have met with people on this issue, i think i ,et with the folks who hardened exhibit one of a hard in school. Hardened school. Can you talk about what they have done . The reason that was such a high cost is they have bulletproof glass. That is not scalable. The thing the school does do, you would never know that it had the best security. It does not look like a prison at all. You would not notice that. What it does have is it has that immediate notification to Law Enforcement and it has, they drill, they practice. If you do not train your teachers and staff, you see what happens. Like my son was murdered. That is what happens if you do not drill and you do not train. When i went to that school, i arranged a private tour after the tragedy in parkland and one thing that was illuminating, we talked to teachers and two children in that school and they felt safer knowing that they knew what to do in an emergency. They know that if there is an active shooter, they know where to go in that classroom and another tier one measure would be to have a redline in that classroom, in the corner so that every child knows where to go, it is out of the site line of that window. The murderer targeted him through that window and the kids on the second floor like the sheriff talked about, a lot of them were in this in those corners. It is lowcost, nocost and the training is very important. Training for Law Enforcement officers in the Marjorie Stoneman douglas shooting, the active Shooter Training that Law Enforcement had, the only trained they only trained every three years. After Shooter Training whether it is lawenforcement and staff and children, it is muscle memory. You need to know what to do. These are light skills. We dont live in kansas anymore. This is happening around our country. Children, staff, need to be trained to matter if they are and a Movie Theater or a school. They need to be equipped with these life lessons to protect themselves in case of an emergency. Did you see each others testimony before today . Negative. About drillsned using plastic bullets. I have to scratch my head area the type of drill, do you have any problems with what max was talking about in terms of like we used to do, crawl under our traumatizednot feel by that. I realize that. We do need to prepare like you have to do fire drills, do you see any problem . I agree. We need to prepare but it is the way we reef we frame how we are doing the training and the type of training we are doing. Thatve to be careful of you do not become so routine that when incidents unfortunately happen, that students do not feel complacent, this is just another drill. That is the risk of over doing something. I think that we have to make it we are not doing this because there is an imminent threat. That is where kids get scared, when they think that the community they are in and their peers, teachers are going to harm them. They become scared to come to school and we need to prevent that option. There will have to be that balance. In preparing and listening to testimony, i am thinking about another issue we are dealing with all the time, the problem at our border. I see a similarity in terms of what we are dealing with. We have a crisis at the border. There is a specific problem in here now and oftentimes, the solution, if we could develop those countries, we could get rid of the drug cartels, we could and the rackets and provide opportunity. You would not have migrants out of Central America but that is a longterm solution. This is with a lot of things you are told talking about, treatment. Th we dont have enough rectus years now. I do a separate out and make sure that the longerterm solutions which are valid and we would all of to do them dont get in the way of the tier one, the things we must do right now and to take that longterm viewpoint because next time when we asked the controversial proposals that they do not get blocked or get included and prevent action. The main issue is there is a limited amount of resources. We have to balance our investment and will we do to defend our schools with what we are doing to prevent School Violence and build our students up. When we are given a limited [inaudible]sources, and engage in the systematic createion efforts to safe schools. We have to incentivize both. The am a big proponent of kiss principle, keep it simple, stupid. I hope to give folks like you a homework assignment. I have seen the recommendations. Tiering. Done the work with this community mostttee to design the simple but effective piece of legislation under our jurisdiction where you can grab peoples attention and create that sense of urgency, have the , sornment do what it can do we are taking action as opposed to what often happens around here, we just need more funding for x y and z. There is the most important things we need to do here dont require a whole lot of funding. Lets concentrate first on that because to me, the number one thing we have to do is create that sense of urgency so that every community, every school in every state is implementing at least tier one and if we can yet them active, continuous improvement. If we can make that incremental improvement, take that first step, you can get peoples attention and they will be looking at tier two and three and four. Without arguing over the more controversial things. One final question. I do want to address controversy oh issues. 15talked about red flag laws red flag laws. What has frustrated me about the gun controlled debate, there is ,ommon ground but we have to what do people agree on . Lets an act what people agree on. If you want to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people or people who have serious male Health Problems but have due process, there is a serious concern. What if you do if they are not guilty at . The morene of controversial aspects of this whole thing. The gun control debate. How do we get by that . Any suggestions am a anyone want to comment on that at all . I was advised not to have this hearing. We have in florida as a result of the legislation of law,year passed a red flag wrist protection law and it is extremely effective. It has a lot of process and due process built into it. Where Law Enforcement has the ability to seek an order from a judge and a final hearing has to be held within 14 days and they are great for a year and they can be renewed. Authority when we take someone into custody under law, and act involuntary commitment from a Mental Health authority evaluation. , weid not have authority could not even sees the firearm. We can do that now. They are effective but a lot of process built in so it is being done with the right people, not just link it and swimming across the board. Because of parkland, it was easier to pass. So it wasigned well noncontroversial . Had you been a stay where you did not have parkland . It was controversy all. How controversy oh . , moderate i would say to very controversial. They had to be a lot of discussions and negotiations. You know better than i the process. Getting into a place where we can get something through. It is not perfect. It is better than where we were. There add this to are a number of things that that can be done across the board that are lowcost, no cost. Probably the best thing is to set minimums on what should be done but recognizing we are a very diverse country and there has to be local control and tell communities and we people, tell them what to do but not necessarily how to do it to allow for that local control, like with drills. You have to have to rills. But dont get into telling them the specifics. They need to be ageappropriate and they will be different in different places. You have to have an active shooter response policy. If we can get to a place where every School District in this 6, sevenad 5, [inaudible] theeed to make noncontroversial things. Of tellingadvocate them, here are five or six or 10 things you can do. If we get there we have moved the needle. I am not a fan of the federal government, i am about local and state control. I dont want to create mandates but the federal government can play a role but i want to be constructive. Anything further you want to add . I will give you one last chance. I will start with you, if there is something you want to add, not necessarily what we talked about but to close out the hearing. There is a few points that are important to consider. What is our definition of safety . Our definition is only about prevention or shooting, security is clearly the way we want to go. Safe want our kids to feel in schools, if we want them to be protected against all forms of School Violence ranging from bullying on up am a we have to do much more than security. We have to make sure we are thinking broadly. We have to think about School Climate. To the point about safety scores, several states are moving within their plans incorporating climate surveys as part of their indicator for title i. They could be helpful but take a broader view. To other things we need build upon things that are already happening. There are several closing houses that are in existence and are available and Technical Assistance centers. I encourage you to look at them and what see what might he improved. Website byfederal National Institute of justice that has many of the practices and programs available around School Safety. Includingevaluations those that are shown to not work and have potential unintended consequences. When you have to consider that [inaudible] there are several Technical Assistance centers including readiness and Emergency Management center which does a lot of this work. Abouturage you to think what has been funded and what is in existence. I will start with safe schools where kids do not get shot and go from there. I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you for shining a light on this problem and letting people know we still have a lot to do, the needle needs to move further. In some cases, it needs to move to begin with. People need to know it will happen again and we have to do things differently. We appreciate the opportunity. Thatwould like to restate how much we believe this is a conflict problem is no single answer. A lot of School Safety lies outside the school before shooting happens. We have to think of this as layers of protection. Mental health is the first layer. Detect kids who need help. If they fall through the cracks we have to keep the firearm through their out of their hands. We have to have schools that are safe. You have to think about it that way. A much broader problem than just one thing. I want to address the mindset of the last 20 years that School Safety is a local issue and not really the federal government should not have a lot to do with that. In my opinion, schools have failed to protect her children since columbine and when those National Crises happen, the federal government has a larger role to take and i think should take a larger role in protecting its schools and its children. As far as federal governments role, they have the power of the purse. Fromschools receive money in some form or fashion from the federal government. There is many Grant Programs in the department of justice that give out money to schools. Once we developed these best practices and these two are one levels, i would advocate that no school gets money unless they have implemented these tier one lowcost, no cost measures. That would move the needle. To blocksigned its law all their doors when they teach. It has taken 20 years for that to happen. Florida has that as well. Recommending that. That needs to be nationwide. As the sheriff talked about, we are talking about trying to move the needle here to protect our children. I have always been impressed with your basic common sense and the way you have taken your tragedy and turned it into a practical approach. That, i truly appreciate our sincere condolences, thank you for participating the hearing record will remain open for 15 days until august 9. This hearing is adjourned. [gavel] [indistinct conversations] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2018] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [indistinct conversations] [indistinct conversations] on monday the Senate Begins a busy week