The House GOP held a press conference this past week to outline a plan to invest $50 million into school and student safety measures. Members were quick to note this was twice the level of investment that Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton proposed several weeks ago. They highlighted several legislative initiatives that have been heard in the Education Finance Committee this session that will be included in this package.
Those initiatives include:
- Additional Safe Schools revenue to help pay for school resource officers, student support personnel, and other school security programs
- School building security upgrades that could be funded through state grants in the bonding bill and expanded use of Long-Term Facility Maintenance revenue for security projects
- Additional funding for school-linked mental health grants
- Grants to provide physical security audits to review facility security and crisis management policies
- Suicide prevention training for teachers to help educators learn how to engage and assist students experiencing mental distress authored
- School-based threat assessment teams established to assess, intervene, and report threats facing students and teachers.
The exact details of this plan will emerge the week of April 9 when legislators return from their spring break and begin moving forward with a supplemental budget plan.
