House Leaders Echo Calls for Continued Coordination Among Law Enforcement, Schools, and Parents in Ensuring Safety of U.S. Students

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. House education leaders today echoed the calls for continued coordination among law enforcement, school officials, and parents made by stakeholders at a conference on school safety convened by U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez and U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings.

“Today’s conference underscores the shared belief that in order for our nation’s students to get the most out of their education, it’s imperative that they feel safe inside the classroom,” said House Education & the Workforce Committee Chairman Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (R-CA).  “Working collaboratively, at all levels of government, to ensure their safety is our highest calling.  Parents should not have to question the safety of their children when they’re at school.  And teachers and school personnel should be confident that they’ll be safe when they go to work each day.”

McKeon continued, “It’s important to recognize that we cannot legislate safety.  Rather, we must provide law enforcement, school administrators, teachers, and parents with the best available tools so they’re empowered to make decisions in the best interests of students in their communities.  Working with the Bush Administration, that’s just what Congress has done – and will continue to do.”

Since the enactment of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) education reform law in 2002, Congress and President Bush have taken key steps to bolster safety inside American classrooms.  Pursuing reforms to empower parents with more educational options for their children; to provide local school districts with more flexibility over their federal school safety dollars; to give teachers more freedom to ensure the safety of their classrooms; and to grant school administrators access to more information to ensure they’re hiring the most qualified and trustworthy individuals, Congress and the Bush Administration have focused on the need to streamline school safety resources where they’re needed most: at the local level. 

Below are just a few school safety measures advanced by Congress in recent years:

Student and Teacher Safety Act (H.R. 5295), passed by House on September 19, 2006

• Authored by Rep. Geoff Davis (R-KY), would empower full-time teachers or school officials – when acting on suspicion based on professional experience and judgment – to search students on public school grounds; and

• Would allow states and school districts to conduct reasonable searches to ensure that the schools remain free of all weapons, dangerous materials, or illegal narcotics.

“The Student and Teacher Safety Act would help keep drugs and violence out of our schools,” said Davis.  “We worked closely with the National Education Association on this legislation that empowers teachers and school administrators to take control of their classrooms.  Teachers and school administrators, who spend countless hours observing and instructing our children, are our first line of defense in combating school violence.  I will continue to work with my colleagues in Congress to ensure that this legislation becomes law.  I applaud the Administration and the Department of Education for making school safety a top priority.”

Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act (P.L. 109-208), signed into law on July 27, 2006

• Includes language from Education & the Workforce Committee Member Rep. Jon Porter’s (R-NV) Children’s Safety and Violent Crime Reduction Act to give schools access to federal crime information databases to provide criminal history records for individuals seeking to work with or around children.

No Child Left Behind Act (P.L. 107-110), signed into law on January 8, 2002

• Provides every local school district in America the ability to make – without federal guidance – their own unique spending decisions with up to 50 percent of its non-Title I federal funding, including funding for teacher quality, technology, after school learning, and Safe & Drug Free Schools programs.  In addition, up to 150 school districts nationwide can participate in a local control pilot project to make spending decisions with 100 percent of these non-Title I federal funds; and

• For the first time ever, gives students who are victims of a crime, or attends a public school designated by the state as unsafe, permission to transfer to a new, safer public school.

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