Tennessee pushes schools to adopt new safety procedures

JACKSON, Tenn. – Tennessee is making changes to keep students safe while they are at school.

The Tennessee Comptroller’s Office has released a review of the changes that have been made regarding school safety procedures in our state.

“It’s safe to say that the school legislature has taken this issue of school security, school safety very seriously. Through the leadership of the governor, through the legislature, they actually appropriated about $240 million in new revenue just to address school security at our public schools, charter schools, even private schools in the State of Tennessee,” said John Dunn, the Director of Communications for the Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury.

A large amount of money is going towards SROs being provided for each public school in the state.

“Perhaps the most notable change is the extra $140 million that is now recurring in the state budget every year to provide one school resource officer in every public school in the State of Tennessee,” Dunn said.

Another change is that schools are required to have every door locked around the facility. There are penalties if a school is not meeting these requirements.

If a school does not already have an SRO, then they will have to get one at their expense. If a school does have an SRO, then state funds can be withheld after the second violation.

“School systems, I think, are really taking this requirement seriously. I know that if you try to go to a school right now, you are not going to find an unlocked door because they realize that there is a lot of effort that goes into keeping those doors locked,” Dunn said.

Some other requirements are a safety plan must be submitted every year, as opposed to every five years.

School districts must establish threat assessment teams, and there are expanded safety drill requirements. 

These requirements went into effect at the beginning of this school year.

You can find more news from across the state here.