Children committee advances school-safety funding, DCF changes and foster-youth aid; several placeholder bills pass

The Committee on Children met Feb. 25 at 9:35 a.m. and voted to advance multiple measures to the Senate or to the floor for further consideration, including a school-safety bill that authorizes use of competitive grant funds for emergency-response hardware, reforms to the Department of Children and Families (DCF) that include expanded definitions and reentry provisions, and a bill to extend certain postsecondary financial aid for youth formerly in foster care.

SB 1216, an act concerning school emergency response systems, was moved as a joint favorable substitute (LCO 5428) and advanced to the floor. Committee discussion focused on substitute language that adds the word “hardware” to clarify that funds from the school security infrastructure competitive grant program may be used for capital purchases. Senators and representatives noted the change makes explicit that the purchases are capital items rather than recurring operating costs. Senator Marr said the bill would allow schools to buy “hardware associated with emergency response communication systems.”

Sponsor remarks credited Staples High School students for raising the issue; the chair thanked “Elijah and Xander,” students from Westport, for bringing the matter forward. Representative Mastro Francesco asked whether the bill’s phrase “personal emergency communication devices” meant privately owned devices; the committee clarified that the term refers to devices carried on a staff member’s person but owned and issued by the school, not reimbursed personal purchases. Senator Marr gave a concrete example, saying the device would function like an ID card that can be pressed to alert police and cited a Georgia example where such a device reduced police response time to under two…