For weeks, lawmakers in the Senate Committee on Education have been working on legislation intended to make Vermont schools safer.
Most of the language in the committee bill, which originated with the state Agency of Education and includes provisions related to safety drills and locking doors during school hours, appears to be uncontroversial.
But on Thursday, a coalition of equity organizations expressed alarm over a provision that would require schools to create “threat assessment teams” — teams that would have to include “local law enforcement officials.”
“This feels like a step backwards,” Amanda Garcés, the director of policy, education and outreach at the Vermont Human Rights Commission, told lawmakers Thursday. “Not forward.”
In a Thursday morning press release, the Vermont Police Out of Schools Coalition — which includes the commission, the Rutland Area NAACP and the ACLU of Vermont, among others — urged lawmakers to remove that provision. The language could imperil students’ privacy and due process, they said, and threatens to disproportionately impact students of color and low-income students.
“Our kids aren’t ‘threats’ to be assessed,” Rachel Seelig, who directs the Disability Law Project at Vermont Legal Aid, said in the release. “They are children who need to be supported. This proposal would impose a law enforcement outlook on Vermont schools and treat certain students as threatening, rather than an integral part of the school community who need protection and support.”
The opposition comes just a day before crossover, the deadline by which bills must pass out of at least one committee if they are to become law this year.
Lawmakers on the education committee appeared split on what to do with the bill Thursday afternoon. Some argued that law enforcement officials are a crucial component to school safety and need to be closely involved in communications about potential threats.
“If law enforcement isn’t already familiar with the players, then they’re already several steps behind,” said Sen. David Weeks, R-Rutland.
Sen. Martine Gulick, D-Chittenden Central and the committee’s vice chair, countered that schools are already likely working with police — yet it’s unclear how policies and procedures differ from district to district.
“I feel like we’re making decisions with incomplete information,” she said.
The committee expects to consider a new draft of the bill Friday.