AASA Endorses New Bipartisan School Safety Legislation

AASA was excited to help craft and endorse new bipartisan school safety legislation called the Preparing Leaders to Assess Needs (PLAN) for School Safety Act (H.R. 6613). This bill would provide resources to states to establish school safety development centers that will help schools conduct assessments of their safety, identify evidence-based solutions to improve security, and access state and federal grant funding.

Few districts have the capacity to have an external evaluation conducted of their school safety plan for each building in the district. PLAN for School Safety Act empowers State School Safety Centers to review district safety plans and offer advice on what the district should prioritize and any evidence-based practices the district should adopt. Instead of being bombarded by companies and vendors with offers of how they can ‘buy their way’ to improved school safety, district leaders would have a trusted, unbiased, free source that could evaluate the security of their campuses and suggest evidence-based improvements. This legislation perfectly complements the increases to federal school safety funding we need to see approved by Congress this year and empowers district leaders to make the best choices for how they utilize funding to improve school safety.