Opinion | Michigan can do more to ensure school safety, but bills languish

Nov. 30, 2021, will always have deep impact in Michigan. That’s the day four students lost their lives inside Oxford High School. Eight others were shot and hundreds hid terrified inside classrooms. Moms and dads got texts from panicked children, told them they loved them and tried to offer reassurance – even though they were also terrified.

The task force released its report in December 2022. When I took office in January 2023, I enthusiastically agreed to sponsor one of the bills that made up the bipartisan plan to implement the task force’s recommendations.

The resulting legislation, House Bills 4088-4100, aims to enhance school safety and student mental health through various measures, including:

• Hiring safety and mental health coordinators in each intermediate school district to improve communication, training, and strategies.
• Requiring schools to update safety plans every three years with input from district-level coordinators and implementing modern security measures.
• Enhancing the OK2SAY tip line by including its contact information on school ID cards, improving reporting standards, and ensuring tips are passed to relevant authorities.
• Mandating comprehensive safety training for school staff and resource officers, establishing uniform definitions for safety terms and increasing active-shooter drills with law enforcement involvement.
• Creating the School Safety and Mental Health Commission to identify and promote best practices for addressing behavioral and mental health needs, supporting at-risk students, and reducing youth suicides.
• Ensuring new school buildings include features such as safer corners and bullet-resistant glass to address modern security issues.
• Ensuring all school buildings can be equipped with radio repeaters to make certain that school resource officers and other first responders can utilize their emergency communications equipment within the walls of the school.

More than a year has gone by since those bills were introduced, and they have yet to receive a hearing. I serve as the minority vice chair of the House Education Committee, where the bills were referred. We haven’t even had a single meeting where school safety was discussed. Why isn’t this a priority?

We cannot afford to let this important legislation linger in legislative limbo. We owe it to our children to move forward with urgency and diligence, acknowledging that their safety and mental health are non-negotiable priorities. It’s time for this bipartisan plan to receive the attention and action it deserves.