TAMPA, Fla. — We're approaching four years since 17 people died in the Parkland school shooting. State lawmakers have passed several key pieces of safety legislation since 2018, and we’re getting a better idea of where things stand.
Those laws include creating the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Public Safety Commission, creating a behavioral threat assessment tool, installing mobile panic alerts through Alyssa's Law and reporting data on how kids are getting care under the Baker Act.
The senior chancellor of public schools says all schools are in compliance, but his team is working with districts to make sure mobile panic alerts are fully integrated.
“They are some districts that are still working with their local 911 coordinators so that when somebody hits the button it gets put to the right place so there's some technical components and aspects of it,” Jacob Oliva said.
He expects those to be up and running by the end of the school year. Bay Area schools started installing panic alarms even before the law.
The executive director of the National Association of School Resource Officers says it's just one tool in the toolbox.
“We just have to be careful that we’re not leaning on that as a solution to this problem. It’s another tool in the toolbox quite frankly," Mo Canady said. "I think about as a former law enforcement officer, the tools I wore on my belt. Those were tools.
"It wasn’t necessarily that you would use all of them in a given circumstance or use any of them in a given circumstance, but it’s there if it’s needed."
He added it's critical not to rely on those and create a false sense of security.
“The thing that we really have to be careful with security technologies again is making sure we have good policies and procedures and good training around those," Canady explained. "We know who’s responsible for using that piece of technology. Those things are critically important."
Lawmakers also talked with the head of public schools about what school safety looks like. Some say safety drills are not quite age-appropriate or there are too many. Safety experts agree that students should be left out of any high-intensity drills.
“We don't start a fire to do a fire drill, and we don't wait until there's a tornado warning to do a severe weather drill," Canady said. "We do those drills in controlled circumstances where we're quite frankly building muscle memory for students in terms of knowing what their role is and again keeping it simple for them."
He added there are several things that should be in the school safety toolbox.
Listen to Canady explaining what he thinks every school should have in an extended interview below.
