Representative Linda Stewart (District 47) on Wednesday, filed two House Bills 325 and 327, aimed at making schools safer places for children, while forging stronger partnerships between principals, teachers and school resources officers across the state.
The bills are intended to bolster mental health care and preventative counseling for children state-wide, provide the funds needed to hire additional school resource officers, and begin to treat the sources of a violent problem whose ultimate result is not just anger, or hate, or ignorance in the classroom – but a cycle of crime and despair outside of it.
“I am very pleased to sponsor a bill that closes unsafe loopholes in the law and helps provide a safe place for every child in Florida to learn without restricting any mature adult’s rights under the 2nd Amendment,” Stewart said in a statement. “I know it isn’t possible to eliminate every possible occurrence of violence, but to make it harder to accomplish an unthinkable attack, we should take action to make our schools safer and be proactive about the mental health of our children.”
In particular, HB 325 seeks to address school safety in several specific ways, such as identifying at-risk youth during their formative years and requiring counselors at the Elementary school level to work within their district’s plan to provide guidance to those who need it most. It further defines a School Safe Zone, where no guns or weapons can be carried by anyone other than an authorized law enforcement officer. The bill also provides a safe harbor for students on campus who find and surrender any item prohibited by law, particularly firearms, without any disciplinary action being taken against them.
HB 327 establishes a funding source to pay for these safety measures – known as the Safe School Funding Trust Fund – using a portion of existing sales tax from the sale of guns and ammunition.
Before filing the legislation, Stewart said she sat down with mental health professionals, school administrators, and classroom teachers to craft a bill that furthers the goal of educating and inspiring Florida’s children, while respecting the legal, constitutionally guaranteed rights of all of Florida’s citizens.
