What Utah lawmakers say they learned about school shootings on trip to Georgia

SALT LAKE CITY — Members of the School Security Task Force say they’re trying to learn from other states that recently had school shootings to make Utah’s schools safer.

Several lawmakers who sit on the task force just returned from a trip to Georgia, where they came back with several lessons, which they discussed during a hearing at the Utah Capitol on Thursday afternoon.

That school shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, which is located about an hour outside Atlanta, happened in early September. Two teachers and two students were killed, and nine others were hurt.

Rep. Ryan Wilcox, R-Ogden, and Sen. Derrin Owens, R-Fountain Green, traveled there last week to meet with school officials and law enforcement.

Wilcox, who chairs the task force, said they learned a lot about how authorities handled that situation there, both before the shooting happened and while it was carried out.

“One of the tragic things that we’ve learned from the Georgia case, from Apalachee High, are the mistakes that were made months before and years before with this kid,” Wilcox said. “When there were signs that needed to be dealt with, they weren’t really handled properly.”

NBC News reported the accused shooter had been investigated a year earlier for threatening a school shooting.

Wilcox said it’s critical to intervene before something bad happens, and not let troubled individuals slip through the cracks.

But Wilcox said the Georgia shooting also revealed some positive lessons, including the very short time it took for police to respond. Before the shooting, Georgia had just implemented a law, known as “Alyssa’s Law,” requiring panic alarms inside the classroom.

A law in Utah, HB84, which was passed and signed into law earlier this year, also mandates that. The law also requires armed guardians in schools and ballistic windows on the first floor, among other things.

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Schools across the state are currently going through the process of completing safety needs assessments, which are designed to identify any gaps between what they currently have and what Utah’s new school safety law requires. Some education officials have previously expressed concerns about how schools will pay for all the new requirements the law imposes on them.

To date, nearly 94% of schools statewide have completed that safety needs assessment, said Shauntelle Cota, Utah State Board of Education director of school safety and student services.

“It shows me that schools are invested, they care, and they want their students and staff to be safe,” Cota said.

The task force also discussed a school shooting in Wisconsin that happened earlier this week, leaving two dead and six others hurt.

Wilcox said he plans to run a bill this upcoming legislative session, which starts in January, to further tighten school safety. He said it will focus on several areas, including ensuring appropriate training for first responders.