Act 29 requires drills, emergency plans and threat-assessment policies in schools

Belle St. James, Legislative Council, summarized Act 29’s school safety requirements for the House Education Committee on Jan. 17. The law requires school districts and approved independent schools to adopt option-based response drills twice per year (commonly called "run, hide, fight" or similar), adopt an all-hazards emergency operations plan, and adopt an access-control and visitor-management policy.

Act 29 also directed the Agency of Education to develop a model behavioral threat assessment team policy and procedures; each district is required to implement policies at least as comprehensive as the model. St. James said the agency will provide model policies and guidance to assist school implementation, and that some schools had struggled to meet access-control deadlines, prompting prior requests to extend deadlines during the implementation phase.

Why it matters: The statute creates consistent baseline requirements across public and eligible independent schools and tasks the agency with model policies to guide districts. The committee discussed deadline extensions and the practical challenges some schools face when implementing access-control measures.

Implementation: St. James said schools found installing access-control measures challenging and that a separate miscellaneous bill on that issue had not passed previously; that topic may be revisited. The act also created a work group on student protections from harassment and discrimination to develop recommendations for the legislature.