Transcripts For CSPAN3 Hearing On School Safety 20240713

Stoneman douglas school. Its hosted by donald payne jr. The subcommittee is meeting today to receive testimony on engaging the communitys perspective on School Security. Good morning, and thank you everyone who is here today. The subcommittee is meeting to discuss Community Perspectives on School Safety and how the federal government can better support local stakeholders in making our children safer. I want to thank the witnesses for participating in todays hearing. First, we have ms. Lauren hogg and mr. Max shafters testimony is ones the American Public needs to hear and ones that members of congress should take to heart as we go about our w k work. A special thank you to both. The chair would like to acknowledge congressman deutsch who represents parkland, florida, and has been a champion for measures to improve School Safety. I ask unanimous consent to allow congressman deutsch to sit and ask questions. Without objection its so ordered. Im glad this hearing can build upon hearings the subcommittee held last year in new jersey. The 2019 2020 school year is well underway and our kids are at risk from violence every day. As a parent of triplets, all too often i watch the news and im terrified about what ive seen here. Tragically, School Violence has taken the lives of too Many American children and educators. 20 years since the columbine massacre which left 13 victims dead, our children are still incredibly vulabnerable while attending school. Our nation has been rocked by a tragic cycle of School Shootings. The 2012 sandy hook shooting left a staggering 20 children and six adults dead, yet congress fell short of passing legislation to combat gun violence in schools. In 2018, there were 24 shootings in k12 schools around the country, including the shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in parkland, florida, that left 14 children and three teachers dead. And the shooting at Santa Fe High School in santa fe, texas, that claimed ten victims. The threat to our students continues. During the first half of 2019, there were 22 School Shootings. Just last week, a teenager was arrested in Washington State for planning to attack school on the 21st anniversary of columbine. Still, the response from the Trump Administration and Republican Controlled Senate has been wholly inadequate. After parkland, Congress Passed the stop School Violence act to provide funds for schools looking to improve their safety infrastructure. However, it is important to remember that School Infrastructure is only one part of the solution to keep our children safe. More must be done. In 2018, 113 people were killed or injured in School Shootings in the u. S. In the same year, at least 1,200 children were killed by gun violence around the country. Gun violence must be addressed both inside and outside of schools to really improve the safety of children in america. We cannot truly improve safety for children until we address these threats regardless of where they happen. That is why the democratic controlled house has passed to move multiple pieces of legislation aimed at making our children and our country safer, including universal background checks and grants for states who use red flag laws. Additionally, im proud that on april 1, 2019, the house passed my bill, the class act which would establish a council within dhs to insure the department coordinates its School Safety activities. I hope the senate will finally act on these measures as the American Public awaits a meaningful congressional response. Like the senate, the Trump Administration has failed today consider Serious Solutions to address School Safety. Last year, the administrations federal commission on School Safety published a report that included no new proposals for federal policy or funding to make schools safer. Instead, it promoted Arming School personnel, a policy that both students and educator groups opposed. Perhaps the only positive outcome from the commissions work was the decision to establish a federal safety Clearing House, which the department of Homeland Security is leading along with the departments of education, justice, and health and human services. This committee will be following the rollout of the Clearing House later this year. Im interested to hear from the witnesses how such a tool might be useful to them in their work to improve School Safety. Planni districts develop and maintain and customize Emergency Operation plans. While such guidance may be useful for districts, it does not address the root problems leading to violence in schools. Nor does it provide School Districts resources to fill their School Safety needs. Our children are experiencing a new normal and one that troubles me. Active Shooter Drills are the new normal in schools. While i recognize the importance of them, its sad our country has come to a place where theyre necessary. We must do more to insure that School Violence and shootings are a thing of the past. And our kids feel safe when learning. We must do more to protect the next generation. This country, communities like the ones i serve and our kids are counting on us. Citizens from across the country are speaking loudly about the need for progress on this subject matter, and we must do our best to respond. With that, now i recognize the Ranking Member of the subcommittee, the gentlemen from new york, mr. King, for an opening statement. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Let me also commend Congress Deutsch and his efforts on this and his dedication ever since the both before and ever since the tragedy in his district. Commend you for that. Mr. Chairman, i would just introduce this into the record. This is a vital issue and im assume to hear the witnesses own testimony. Place that into the record. With that i recognize the chairman of the full committee. Mr. Thompson is not here yet. Other members of the s subcommittee, Opening Statements may be submitted for the record. I want to welcome our panel of witnesses. Our first witness, who may be the youngest to appear before this subcommittee, is lauren hogg, cofounder of march for our lives, and a survivor of the School Shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in parkland, florida. Although she may be young, ms. Hogg is undoubtedly and unfortunately an expert on this topic. Im thankful she is here testifying for her first congressional hearings to share her experiences. Next we have the director of new jerseys office of Homeland Security and preparedness. He has appeared before the subcommittee numerous times and i thank him for coming back. Next we have ms. Cathy martinez prathner who is the director of texas School Safety center and has been focused on improving School Safety in texas for the past 20 years. Lastly, we have mr. Max shafter, he is the founder and ceo of save schools for alex. An organization he founded after losing his son to the School Shooting in parkland, florida. Again, thank you for being here today. Without objection, the witnesses full statements will be inserted into the record. I now ask each witness to summarize his or her statements for five minutes beginning with ms. Hogg. Chairman thompson, Ranking Member king, Ranking Member rogers and members of the subcommittee, thank you all for allowing me the opportunity to give a students perspective on School Security. My name is lauren hogg and im a cofounder of march for our lives as you just heard. A junior in high school. Im a concerned student who wants to survive high school, both metaphorically and literally. I hope that this testimony aids in your efforts to protect students from all zip codes and races from going through what myself and my class mates have in the wake of a School Shooting. I want to preface my testimony by saying that although im honored to be here today, i would not be here if not for the horrendous events that took place on february 14th, 2018, at my high school, Marjorie Stoneman douglas. 34 of my class mates, my friends, and my teachers and coaches were injured. 17 of them fatally shot with an ar15 in our hallway. Additionally, although im here today using my own experience of evidence against the miltizat n militarization of schools. Im here to ask for your actions. I was nine years old when sandy hook occurred. For most of my life i have been force fed the importance of School Security. I remember the first week back to school after sandy hook. I remember spending the first hour of school watching my teachers shoes on the rainbow carpet as she tried to no avail to explain what a code red drill was to a room of rowdy fourth dpr graders. I never thought twice about them, until four years later when my friend alaina posed a question about why we were having the drills in the first place. In eighth grade alaina sat in front of me. We never talked about School Security until one day when our friend, austin, returned to school after surviving the ft. Lauderdale shooting that pree previous week. Our group contemplated the effectiveness of our schools safety procedures every three months. Nearly a year later, the three of us were at school as nervous freshman on valentines day when once again we went through the code red drill. The only difference was that this time only two of us made it home. Alaina was 14 years old when she was murdered. The week after valentines day was full of many things. It was full of tears, it was full of funerals and it was full of much talk around School Security. Ill never forget the first morning back to school. We were welcomed back by what seemed like every Armed Security officer in the whole county. It was a sea of black and blue uniforms. They thought they were making us feel safe, but the sight of yet another man holding a gun was enough to make many of us feel sick. Our schools, which once was considered a safe haven of learning by many of us was turned into a place of imprisonment. Much like our National Incarceration system, our school when flooded with resource officers that were considered safety precautions became a place where my black and brown class mates were penalized and targeted at three times the rate of us white students. Simply put, schools when overmilitarized are made to seem like prisons, embed the idea that violence is something to be expected at school. Thats no mindset for any child to learn in. Following the tragedy at my high school, numerous individuals, including the secretary of education, look to increase the presence of firearms in schools. I as an individual and a representative of march for our lives, strongly oppose the notion that Arming Teachers will make our schools safer. Theres a fine line between proper security and militarization, and i do examine this line and i urge you to consider those most affected. Having me here is an important first step, but students must continue to be consulted. I urge you to continue noninvasive proactive measures, not simply punitive reactive measures. You need to invest in trained Mental Health professionals. To those who suggest the solution is to simply hire more School Resource officers or rsos, let me remind you the armed sro in my high school did nothing as 17 of my class mates and teachers were murdered. The sro has been charged with child neglect. It was my unarmed football coach that took action and lost his life in the process. School safety cannot be addressed fully without addressing our gun violence epidemic. Instead of promoting punitive Safety Measures i describe as putting a band aid on a students bullet wounds, i ask you to think what is beneficial to us students. I hope with all my being that gun violence prevention legislation is passed that perhaps we wont have to have 16yearolds speaking on School Safety. I hope when it comes to School Safety i wont have to hear students half my age claim they were born after Marjorie Stoneman douglas and grew up in the environment they were force fed School Security until they went through a mass shooting of their own. Our students are tired of being tired. The future of the country is at stake. The future of this countrys safety is now in your hands. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. I now recognize mr. Maples to summarize his statement for five minutes. Chairman payne, Ranking Member king, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. Its an honor to speak with you and share with you the work my office is doing to keeping the people of new jersey safe, especially in regard to educational institutions. T we are tasked Law Enforcement, nonprofit organizations and the private sector. We are charged wouith bolsterin new jerseys resources for protection, preparedness, training and federal grants manager. Attacks against children and staff is perhaps the most jarring threat we face. Recent incidents at schools across the country serve as stark reminders that schools are targeted by those seeking to commit acts of violence. Law enforcement unnew jersey with the assistance of authorities in delaware prevented a potential School Shooting this past june when we arrested a man possessing a firearm in westfield, new jersey. The safety of our children and those charged with their care are paramount. We must do all thats necessary to provide students and staff with a sense of comfort and security in their learning environments. Parents and guardians deserve the peace of mind their children will return to them at the end of the school day. For that reason, governor murphys administration is in sync in combining resources to insure the protection of our children. My office has worked to protect our students, would not be possible with the strong partnerships we have with local, state and federal agencies. Were proud of the progress we continue to make as a state throughout all our institutions, including in education. However, we recognize that our work is never complete. And continual improvement is the only way to succeed at protecting new jersey and the country. We provide details on our on going efforts, well seek to continue to improve our approach towards preventing these incidents from occurring in the first place. A focus on prevention is key in stopping an incident before it starts and avoiding the need to employ response tactitactics. Its our goal to be first preventers, as well as First Responders and make sure our communities embrace a culture of preparedness. The new jersey director calls for local Law Enforcement agencies who receive tips about suspicio suspicious activity to immediately notify my office. It led to an unprecedented of reports. Our office created high level thresholds and notification protocols to insure that all threat to life leads, particularly ones that involve schools are immediately actioned to the appropriate state and federal Law Enforcement entities, which allows for a more sta standardized access. We will continue to prioritize the identification of suspicious activity. We will expand innovative efforts to measures such as Training School personnel, including administrators, faculty, School Resource officers, custodian and bus drivers on how to recognize and report suspicious activity. My agency collaborated with the department of education and University Hospital to provide in person training for School Safety specialists and to include bleed control kits to districts throughout new jersey. Through unannounced active Shooter Drills we can test the effectiveness of plans and actions of students, faculty and stuff in an environment thats crell controlled but realistic. We continue to conduct large school exercises for k12 schools, insuring everyone including School Children know what actions to take. With that in mind, new Jersey College and universities part in a Mass Gathering Working Group thats aimed at identifying and addressing those common volnerabilities and filling in any gaps where students gather throughout the state. We created a subcommittee on the states task force which i chair to coordinate best practices across agencies and in agreement with National Priorities and local needs. Lastly, my office and the new Jersey State Police in coordination with county and local partners conduct physical security assessments at schools, as well as provide training to local Law Enforcement agencies to increase the capabilities to conduct assessments across the state. One of the biggest safety and security challenges facing many educational institutions throughout new jersey is funding. Legislation introduced by chairman payne, hr 6920 would provide dedicated federal funding under current programs of at least 90 million every year thats earmarked for scoot security. This would assist schools throughout the country, including new jersey, adding resources that would enable schools to meet the goals we have set out to achieve in the areas of prevention and response. In conclusion, efforts such as the Mass Gathering Working Group and the countless trainings and exercises our office conducts each year highlight well do all thats necessary to insure the safety and security of the residents and visitors of new jersey. We remain dedicated today continuing these efforts, to further collaborating with our partners, and to work towards addressing threats with a focus on prevention. Chairman payne, Ranking Member king, distinguished members of the subcommittee, i thank you again for the opportunity to testify today. I look forward to your questions and yield back to the chairman. Thank you for your testimony, sir. I now recognize ms. Martinez prather to summarize her statement for five minutes. Chairman payne, Ranking Member king and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify on the topic of School Safety and your leadership and making School Safety a priority. Im the director of the texas School Safety center at texas state university, and im here to discuss the efforts of the center to support schools and effectively carrying out mandates and best practices in texas. The importance of prevention efforts in developing a comprehensive approach to School Safety, and the impact that Community Violence also has in our schools. As youre aware, every day our schools face challenges that have the potential to impede the learning process for our students. These challenges can range from human caused acts of violence, to natural disasters, to more frequent safety issues our schools deal with. The events in santa fe, texas, and parkland, florida that have impacted our nations schools continue to remind us we have work to do and we need to continue to work to make sure our students have a safe place to learn and thrive. The texas School Safety center was created in 1999 following the cualmolumbine incident. It includes training, research and Technical Assistance for k12 district, Charter Schools and colleges across the state. The board of directors represent teachers, principals, superintendents, school board members, school based Law Enforcement and parents, all who provide a diverse perspective to form the work that we do. Texas has approximately 1,025 School Districts. That includes over 9,000 campuses. 700 Charter Schools and 50 Community Colleges, all serving over 5. 3 Million Students. Texas schools are charged currently with several School Safety mainidates. Some of those includes the implementation of a multihazard operations plan, providing for employee training and responding to an emergency. Conducting drills and exercises to prepare students and employees including substitute teachers for responding to an emergency. Providing an audit once every three years and establishing a School Safety committee. This last texas legislative session passed mandates to enhance the posture of safety in our texas schools. Those mandates i will highlight. School districts, charter cools and Community Colleges must submit their plan now for review and verification to the School Safety center. With the opportunity for the center to provide feedback and the School District to make corrective action. Each School District also must now establish a Behavioral Threat Assessment Team to serve each campus of the district. And then a licensed architect will be another board member to inform and prioritize the role that School Design plays to uphold the Safe Learning environment. Our commissioner of education has to adopt facility standards for schools that provide a safe and security learning environment. Santa Fe High School was the target of a senseless attack, taking the lives of ten people. Eight students and two teachers. While the high school and School District as well as the community continue to recover from this tragic event, the state of texas also continues to make School Safety a priority. The center knows that schools face many threats. The impact is no doubt catastrophic. Thats why we take a comprehensive approach to School Safety. We provide training, develop tools and resources for schools on how to prevent and or mitigate as well as respond to and recover from any types of threat or hazard that could arise. School architecture and design is one of the key mitigation strategy. To be clear, this is not about installing camera and metal detectors. Although that may be appropriate for some schools. This is about designing schools to be learning spaces first. One that contain security measures. Whether a building is new or existing, its physical structures do not impact teachers or students. The center stresses to schools the importance of prevention efforts. As i mentioned earlier, texas requires School Districts to have threat assessment teams and responding to an active Shooter Event or knowing what to do with if an intruder enters the building are skills that students, teachers and administrators unfortunately need to practice and perfect. However, we know that jaeeducat are interested in being proactive. After an event happens in our schools, parents and legislators want to know what we could have done to have this prevented. Research has shown these events can be prevented because the actors tells others beforehand and they are carried out because theres a view that violence is the only option left to solve problems. Behavioral threat assessment is provides a proactive evidence based approach for identifying individuals who may pose a threat to themselves and others, intervening with appropriate resources and ultimately improving the safety and well being of concern of the school. The goal is not to punish the child, its not intended to have an adversarial process, but to connect them with the interventions they need so a threat can be averted. Lastly, i want to bring attention to the impact that Community Violence has on schools. Most recently, on august 3rd, 2019, a gunman in el paso, texas, entered a walmart and took the lives of 22 people, including a student from a nearby School District. Weeks later on august 31st, a gunman killed seven people throughout the midland, odessa, community, including a student from a nearby School District. And all of these were not School Shootings, they had a Significant Impact on the School Districts within those communities. As mentioned, two of those individuals killed were students and many others, either friends or family members or in some way connected to the district. In the aftermath of these acts of violence, many of the School Districts in these communities were provided resources to assist with counseling for students, staff and parents, which in some districts still continues today. I want to finally communicate that School Safety is a shared responsibility that involves school boards, superintendents, principals, teachers, Mental Health professionals, Law Enforcement, architects, state agencies and organizations, parents, students and policy makers. By insuring our schools are Safe Learning environments we give our children the opportunity to excel academically, emotionally and socially. Thank you for allowing me to speak today and i look forward to any questions you may have. Thank you for your testimony. I now recognize mr. Shaftner to summarize his statement for five minutes. My name is max shafter. My son, alex was one of 17 people that were brutally murdered at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School last year. After i buried my son, my priority was to make sure that my other three children were safe in their schools. I have spent the past year advocating for national School Safety best practices that can be recognized at the federal level and housed a School Safety website and made available to all schools. My goal is to make it as easy as possible for schools to be as safe as possible. Im pleased to see the president s federal commission on School Safety report recommend development of this Clearing House and the department of Homeland Security along with other federal agencies have been working extremely hard to implement this recommendation. I recently reviewed a demonstration of the dhs new School Safety Clearing House website. Its schoolsafety. Gov and i was extremely impressed as well. I hope once the website is launched, there will be an Outreach Campaign to schools and School Districts so they can take advantage of the information as quickly as possible. Two areas this committee could have the most impact, is the area of grants and marge communications. In regards to grants, grants can be used so i understand that fema preparedness grants can be used by local jurisdictions to support School Safety enhancements. I recommend this committee consider ways to insure fema grant dollars that are used for School Safety are used to implement the best practices identified on the dhs School Safety Clearing House website. And that they should be used on the most basic safety enhancements before anything else. Expensive Technology Upgrades should take a back seat to common sense measures that enhance security. With regard to emergency communications, in parkland the First Responder radios failed and were not interoperable. Delaying help for victims who were dying on the third floor waiting for medical attention. S. W. A. T. Teams had to resort to using hand signals to avoid shooting each other because the radios failed. The 9 11 Commission Report highlighted this program at the pentagon and ground zero. 20 years later the same problem plagued our First Responders at my sons school. Its not acceptable and it has to stop. Congress cant force all First Responder agencies to use a single radio system, but you can incentivize agencies to become interoperable as soon as an incident happens, regardless of what radio system youre using. I also recommend Congress Pass the eagles act to reauthorize the u. S. Secret Services National Threat Assessment Center so that they can expand the reach to help States Development programs. These programs can identify students that exhibit concerning behavior, and get them the help they need before they commit acts of targeted violence. I also support the taps act, which would result in a dhs led process to develop threat assessment capabilities at the broadest level across the united states. The secret service uses threat assessment teams to protect the president , the Capitol Hill Police uses threat assessment teams to protect you in congress. Our children deserve the same protection. In my view, the reason School Shootings have been an epidemic for the last two decades is number one, parents and Community Members have a mindset that it cant happen here. That false sense of security is partly due to the fact that schools are not being honest with the public about violence on their campus. Additionally, schools are not successfully establishing a positive culture and climate as in many cases result in bullying, which can lead to school mass murder. We need to do a better job of teaching kids the tools to deal with their anger, rejection, and failure later in life. Florida has implemented laws to gain School District compliance, but i believe the most effective strategy to doing this is public pressure to make School Districts prioritize safety and security. Unfortunately, there is no School Safety ratings system that currently exists to tell parents whether or not their school is safe. When parents go online to look at ratings of k12, many of them have an a rating. They dont realize thats just academics. Academics are important, but if the children do not come home from their school every day, nothing else matters. The car industrys crash test rating has improved car safety andfatalities. For parents theres no way to know if their Childs School is safe. A ratings system would make changes nationwide. Unfortunately, we know that the next school mass murderer is already out there. Its not a question of if, its a question of when. We know what can be done to prevent it and we know what must be done to mitigate the risk of more lives lost. Thank you very much and i look forward to your questions. Id like to thank you all the witnesses for their testimony. Im remind each member that he or she will have five minutes to question the panel. Ill now recognize myself for questions. Ms. Hogg, i want to take a minute before i ask myself my question to show a video that was put out about active Shooter Drills in schools and the reality of what kids are going through today for context. This is a real student, and was not scripted. Let us play the video, please. Good morning, welcome. Today were going to be learning what to do in the event of an active shooter. Were going to bring in a special guest, who is actually an expert on this. Shes going to be leading our Team Building event. Kayley . There was an active shooter, youd all be dead. When you talk out loud, the shootheaer can tell where you a and where youre hiding. Sometimes we play the games who can be quietest the longest, so well remember. You can try and protect your friends by pushing the tables and chairs against the doors. You have to put a piece of paper overthe door windows so they cant see in. You cant cry. It gives away your position and your hiding spots. And if youre in the bathroom, you have to stand on the toilet seat and crunch down so they cant see your feet and they cant see your head so they dont know that youre in there. A list of things that can help the police. For example, if you hear a lot of bangs like bang, bang, bang, bang, the shooter might be down the hall. If you hear louder ones, look, bang, bang, bang. He could be right outside your door. If the shooter comes in a room, screaming wont do anything. You have to try and fight back. If you cant escape, pop the emergency escape plan where you have to break a window and climb through. Our teacher used to sing a song to make it easy to remember. Lock down, lock down lets go high lock the doors and stay inside dont cry or youll be found. Can you tell the subcommittee what goes through your mind when you see this video . What should congress be doing to help insure kids are safe in schools rather than putting the responsibility on kids to become experts in active shooter situations . So i was grateful enough to be able to be part of the Creation Team on this video. I remember when i first saw it the first thing came to me, that was me. Thats been me my whole life. As i said, i was born after columbine. And we learned those little rhymes. Nursery rhymes that are supposed today teach you how to survive when somebody comes into your school to murder you. I think there are many things that can be done that i addressed in my testimony. But i think, to address the gun violence especially epidemic. We must invest money into school, Mental Health resources and we cannot just say again or hear again on my perspective members of congress say theyre going to do something about Mental Health because i agree with that, but then do nothing. Ive seen what its like. I am still in school. And i think for many people, many legislators like yourselves, school is different these days, probably, then when you went to school. There are so many extra pressures we deal with with every single day, so i would really push Mental Health and i think you need to have those conversations with Mental Health professionals themselves to see what works best. Yeah, i think like i said with that video, all i saw was myself. Growing up because that was me and probably will always be me because thats what i was taught when i was learning my abcs. Thank you and the chair recognizes mr. King. Let me thank all the witnesses for being here today and trying to make something positive out of something so horrible. I want to thank you for that. Director maples let me lead off with you, first of all, thank you for your work in Homeland Security. Im very appreciative of that. Thank you. I mentioned Training Programs. Do you think those are successful with preventing violence and are schools implementing them . So the Training Programs we have existing in new jersey, one of the biggest focuses is on the preventive part so were focusing on everything from bus drivers, custodians, teachers and students. If a person they know in the community is demonstrating behavior ibd caters, they should report that. Part of the train iing pk recognizing those behaviors and two, where to go with the information maintaining everyones rights and as us to work with the School District and Law Enforcement. So we are implementing those. You find the School Districts taking it seriously . In new jersey, we have, im sure there are some outliers, but we continue to work with them and the department of education to make sure that training gets out there and they are taking it seriously. Along those line, thank you for your testimony. Youve spoken all over the country now. Do you find the concern is increasing . Is there still an an think thi in certain districts thinking the its never going to hit them . It depends. If youve had a School Shooting in your community, youre hyper vigilant, but in still think its not going to happen to them. Theres no way for parents to know whether or not your school is safe. There are so many things that we can do today that are low cost, no cost, that have been implemented in florida. Just to give you an example, in Broward County, the sixth largest School District in the country, we didnt even have a formal active assailant response policy. Marjory Stoneman Douglas did not conduct a code red drill for serl years prior to the shooting, so they didnt train their teachers, their staff what to do in an emergency and god forbid an active shooter walks on to your campus, what happens at marjory Stoneman Douglas, a lot of dead people. That needs to change. In florida, we have mandated, come to the realization that schools are not going to do the right thing. They have failed to protect our children. And in florida, weve mandated that schools implement drills, we mandated they every one of them has to have an active assailant response policy ch they have to train and training in a lock down, which is what many schools are doing is just teaching the next School Shooter exactly where to go. We need to be training them and giving them options based training so they have lots of different options if god forbid something happens. So extremely happy weve got the School Safety website coming live but we need more schools to be able to access that information and make their schools safe. Theres still a lot of apathy in this country. Any resistance or just apa y apathy . Many schools didnt want to admit there was a heroin epidemic. Do you find resistance like that when it comes to gun state of the . Theres a culture to underreport violence on campus. An example in Broward County at marjory Stoneman Douglas between 2014 to 2017, they reported zero assaults. Zero threats. Zero intimidation. These are all not true and lies. So we need accurate reporting of violence on campus, bullying can lead to mass murder. We need to know whats happening on our campus so we can help the children, reduce violence on campus. That will make all children and communities safe. Thest a cooperative effort so its working with Law Enforcement. Inside the community, inside the schools. Thank you for your dedication. I now recognize the gentleman from new york, mr. Rose. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you for showing the courage to come here today do you think weve done enough, congress . I mean i think if you would have done enough, we wouldnt be having to have this conversation today, right . Just b to be frank with you. I think if we did enough, i wouldnt be here. I wouldnt have lost my friends. Lot of people back in my community in florida would not have lost their children or their leadoff loved ones. I think theres much more that needs to be done. I appreciate you allowing me to be here today because thats the first step. But i think theres a myriad of things we need to work on. Like i said and i believe part of School Safety is implementing proactive measures that include things like gun violence prevention and thats something thats so often not wanted to be something thats talked about. But i think we need to remember, i think one of the greatest things you all can do as congressmen and women is have young people be at the forefront of these conversations. I want to get a sense of what you and your friends who went through u this horrific crisis. Think about us in washington, d. C. If parkland happened tomorrow, again it might, at a different school. It might. If sandy hook happened again tomorrow somewhere else, do you think we would act . Within regards to School Safety . And gun control. I think one day you will. Unfortunately if it takes until theyre my age, losing loved ones to gun violence, if you guys dont act, things will happen because people my age have been continuously traumatized, in school or out of school gun violence, and especially communities of color, were going to be the legislators sitting in your seats. Were going to be the ones who have lived through this who have to make these changes. So if trying to imagine a world where School Shootings arent a thing that happened to myself is like trying to describe a color to a blind man. I mean this has been my normal. My whole life. Its unfortunate, but it has. I think if sanity hook or stoneman loug las happened tomorrow, im not sure if many congressmen, congresswoman, would do anything today unless it was their own child or loved one who was taken to gun violence. I dont think you and your friends at this thoipoint have reason to trust us. I think i share your sentiment. I dont know how much more blood has to be spilled in this country. I dont know how much more children have to be afraid to go to school. I dont know how many moparents have to hug their kids before they go to school fearing theyre not going to come home before we do something. This is, this is as sad as it gets and youre right. It may have to come to your and your friends replacing us up here before we actually act. As you think about your teachers that youve had, do you think that they are capable during another parkland discharging weapon in your defense . I think its not the responsibility. I come from a family of teachers. I think when they went to college, went to school to become an educator, they werent thinking that part of their job was going to have to be a security officer. So i, like i stated once before, we had an armed officer at my school and what came to that moment of fight or flight, he went away. So the idea that teachers having guns would solve this issue is the same idea as giving another person a gun to solve gun violence is the issue if you know what im saying and when we hear those things like two guns will protect the majority of people from one bad guy with a gun, its kind of just sounding like were trying to turn every individual or in this case, every single teacher, into an armed vigilante. Thats something no teacher should have to be and also, i just can cannot imagine if teachers were armed, the amount of incidences that would take place that would be them killing a student who didnt happen to be the perpetrator of the violence and i think there would just be more violence coming out of that if teachers were armed. Thank you for your leadership. I wish there were more folks around here like you. Thank you. Thank you. I know recogninow recognize the gentleman from pennsylvania, mr. Joyce. Im sorry. Hes gone. Recognize the gentleman from texas. Mr. Crenshaw. I thank everyone for being here. Mr. Shakter, thank you for being here. Youre doing a great justice to your sons memory by look iing r the right solutions to this. You answered a lot of my questions because youre testimony was so exact. You mentioned the National Best practices clearing and School Safety. Gov being a great first step, but said theres going to be an issue with how well we get that information out to schools. Do you have any recommendations on the best way to do that and id like miss martinez to also anl answer that question. And mr. Maples as well. The next step after what are deemed to be pretty good next steps. Pretty Good Solutions already. The first thing were lacking is you know at the end of october, that website is going to go live. So theres going a lot of great resources on that website. Its very interactive so schools will be able to go on there, answer a series of questions to see where they are in the process of making their school safe and then that website will walk you through the process. It will tell you where your gaps are, your deficiencies are and will direct you to grant do dollars. To give you an exam p. One of the deficiencies we have currently is that a lot of our grant programs, theyre not implementing best practices. Once we have these best practices, once the website goes live, tie those best practices grant dollars. We want to make sure that schools are implementing the most effective measures to keep schools safe. We dont just want a shiny object. So if issue is if theres not enough fwrants. Its that we arent tieing that money to the right practices. You mentioned this, too, what are the basic measures. You answer that as well . The next question i had for both as well. Thank you. So as far as low cost no cost measures for instance, just having a formal active assail lance response policy. To think the sixth largest School District in the country didnt have it, im sure theres a lot of schools that dont have a simple policy. To train your teachers and staff, these are low cost measures. Training your staff to lock your doors. Identifying a safe corn er in te classroom that children know where to go in an emergency. And then its encouraging students to report violent threats. Kids know who you know who puts something on snap chat or instagram. We need to encourage them to see something, Say Something but more importantly, do something with that information that they know about and one of the problems at marjory Stoneman Douglas is Law Enforcement that responded didnt have access to live intelligence. The School District use ferpa to not share cameras with Law Enforcement so when they came on scene, they didnt know where the shooter was. It took them 11 minutes to get into the first floor and 40 minutes to get into the third floor to administer medical attention to the ten kids that were shot and dying on third floor. As far as getting the word out, we need to work with every state School Safety center to get that information out and populate as pr broadly as possible. We have one of those right here. Miss martinez, could you expand on that . Is there any metrics or successes that we could speak of . Yes, sir. Regarding the federal clearinghouse, whats great about that is that its an interagency effort so oftentimes from a state perspective, you have multiple agencies working on this effort in good faith saying Different Things and that confuses School Districts. Our role at the state level is to bring that together, synthesize it together, incorporate texas considerations because we have a pretty comprehensive mandates for co s schools to follow and push that back out to School Districts so i think its great that the agencies are working together. I think its going to help with clear lines of communication and guidance. Texas really took a page from the state of virginia in passing its Behavioral Health assessment legislature this session with this idea of prevention really needing to have a focus. Its part of that comprehensive piece. And the center we focus on mitigation prevention primarily. The idea here is is were creating a culture of Situational Awareness where Students Trust adults. They know they can go to somebody. They know theyre not snitching on another peer because we know they have that intel, that information to share and most oftentimes, they dont for various reasons, but knowing theyre able to report that information, knowing that individual is going to get help and we always stress its not intended to be a means of engaging inclusionary discipline. In texas, there are going to be several pieces of data that will have to be connected in which the state Education Agency will be overseeing in terms of whos on that team because the big focus here is that the it has to be multidisciplinary. Its not just the school principal. Not just the school counselor. You have your campus administration. A Law Enforcement officer. Mental health professional. A teacher depending on the situation, fluid. You may bring in a member that has a close relationship with the student. The idea here is that it captures preincident indicators or alarming behaviors that may not just be leading to an act of violence. It could be a student who is threatening harm to themselves. Maybe behaviors changed that show there may be a Substance Abuse problem. Maybe theres trauma experienced at home. Please wrap up your answer please. Im sorry. Yes. Sorry about that. Only get five minutes. A long answer, but thats where texas is going in terms of its threat assessment. My time is up. Thank you all for being here. Takes a lot of gut, especially at a young age to come here, so thank you very much. Thank you. Next, well recognize the gentle lady from illinois. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Children should be free to live their lives and go to School Without the fear of gun violence. Unfortunately, this is not a reality for the 58 Million Students who are in their first weeks of a new school here. Just this tuesday, students from Courtland Elementary School in my district participated in their first active Shooter Drill of the year. This is one of the many active Shooter Drills and trainings sthunts and teachers will participate in this year to prepare for a day we hope will never come. Thank you so much for being here to honor your son and protect communities around the country. Miss hogg, thank you for being here and sharing your experience. Thank you for your leadership. You, your brother, your fellow advocates are an incredible inspiration the to me. I also applaud the peace plan for a safer america. When i reviewed your plan, i was especially glad to see that it includes expanding background checks and dedicate iing annual funding funding for gun violence research. Proposals im proud the house has pass ed this r year. These are the first in a series of steps. Miss, in your testimony, you encourage investments in Mental Health in your schools. Can you tell us more about why these are so important to students like you . Well thank you for that. I feel kind of hyped up. So i think ive said this im just going to reiterate some things that ive said before. Like i said we need nonaggressive measures because when we put in these measures, by that, i mean security measures and not Mental Health measures, its almost as if us students are being punished for the ways of the world to protect us and punishment has been shown to be ineffective. Additionally, we must not be suffocated by School Security measures and by having trained Mental Health professionals there, i think that is helping you know i think thats decreasing the amount of suffocation. That these increased security measures are causing. I think when it comes to School Security specifically, Mental Health professionals can help us deal with the increase of security due to the ways of the world like i said the lack of action around gun violence prevention. I think specific Mental Health counselors, not just Guidance Counselors because i cant tell you the amount of times before even the shooting that happened at my school, i went to my guidance counselor and the ratio of guidance counselor to student number is something that is outrageous to me. I remember i didnt do the math until after and at a school marjory Stoneman Douglas was about 4500 kid, there were four or five Guidance Counselors. So i remember my guidance counselor did not know my name until after the shooting. When i went to her to ask for help and then again, i had the schedule sked towards the end of the week because she said she was busy because when spring was and she was trying to get dkids into college, but really Mental Health professionals have helped me so much. And even then, i mean i had some difficulty with the Mental Health professionals that were put in place at my school as a reactive measure after the shooting that cured. But we have to ensure that especially if its in the host of a school shoot iing, these people are trauma trained. Yes. Because if you put a guidance counselor who spends a majority of their time doing academic counseling in a school where kids have watched their friends be murdered and bleed out next to them doesnt work. Trying to get a kid into college and trying to explain to a kid why they saw what they saw is impossible. Thank you. After the conversation around keeping our schools safe has to include a discussion on how we can ensure that students feel safe again at school after the traumatic events as you sxwrus describeded. Last year, the Washington Post had an analysis which found that 187,000 students have been exposed to gun violence at schools since columbine. Were facing a future in which hundreds of thousands of americans will be carrying these physical and mental scars for the rest of their lives. Can you talk a little bit and briefly about the longterm challenges that you and your classmates face in the aftermath ov a shooting . We touched on the tra marx but anything else you want to share . When it comes to what you guys can do to help in aiding in trauma, the first thing you can do is address gun violence as an issue and take action on that because at least for my trauma, i know many other of my friends and other victims of gun violence, every single week when another shooting happens we see it on the news, whether mass shooting or local shooting, were retraumatized. We feel as though were back in the moment we went through a shooting of ourselves and those stages of grief restart every single week. Every single week, sorry im continue, but every single week i watch cbs sunday morning and they usually address School Shootings when they happen. So every single sunday for a long time, thats been a Family Tradition of mine since i was like 5 years old. I had to stop watching it because i would hear the stories of the people that went through the School Shootings every single sunday and i could no longer do it because i wouldnt be ready to go to school the next day mentally. So the first thing you can do addressing gun violence as an epidemic. Thank you. As a nurse, i know its not uncommon r for people who have lived through School Shootings to experience posttraumatic stress and other traumas. This is especially true for children and were going to work to address it. Thanks to the witnesses for being here and i yield back my time. Thank you. I now recognize the gentleman from mississippi. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I also have an experience with School Shootings. As a prosecutor, i had the opportunity to be involved in the investigation and preparing a case for trial of one of the first School Shootings many the country. The pearl high School Shooting on october 1st, 1997, early that morning. Killed his mother before going to school. He then concealed a rifle in an overcoat, entered Pearl High School where he then opened fire on multiple students, killing christina m christi christina and lydia and entering several others. Luke also had Mental Health issues. And attempted the jury should find him not guilty by reason of insanity. The jury rejected that and even though they discovered he suffered from mental illness, it didnt arieff at the level where he shouldnt be responsible for his actions. Hes currently serving three life sentences plus 140 years. But one of the actions was one by the school administrator. When he heard gunfire, he went to his vehicle, obtained his firearm and was able to apprehend luke before he left the campus that day. I will tell you from my investigation and my working with Law Enforcement, we believe and were very confident his actions that day saved additional lives because of his prompt response, because there was additional rounds of ammunition, luke would have continued this rampage if he would not have been apprehended very quickly. Im aware that in response to parkland this year, the legislature in florida passed law signed by the government that would allow School Officials in florida to be armed. It expand what they call in florida the guard yawn program. It sets forth stipulations, with one that the School District must approve the measures so therefore, schools are not required to do that, but they have the option to opt in. Two, teachers must volunteer for the program. No one is required to participate but teachers have the opportunity to volunteer. They must undergo background checks. There must be psych rick evaluations and must be specific training by Law Enforcement to make sure teachers are trained. So my question e to you is do you believe that the response by the Florida Legislature in allowing School Districts to opt in to a system that i just referred to, do you believe that should be part of this discussion that we are having as it relates to School Violence and shootings . This is an incredibly complex issue. I think thats clear from the testimony and your questions. Part of what were trying to do in new jersey and the only thing i can answer to is the new jersey aspect of this. Were looking at every solution out there. Whether it be gun violence prevention. Measures like Arming Teachers. Were looking at everything, but the very first steps and i think mr. Crenshaw asked a question about what are the next steps we take. It has to be about that initial training. What mr. Shakter was talking about. Adhering to those best practices. The plan. No plan survives first contact. Thats something we used to say in my community. I worked at cia for most of my career protecting people. Its what i did. We have to have a plan in place. And until one great example of this is you could have the best s. W. A. T. Team in the world on stand by in the wing of a school like Stoneman Douglas and if somebody lets him in the back door on another wing, people are going to die and its an unfortunate consequence of that. So we have to talk about locking the doors. Teaching kids not to open the doors. So i willlook ed at those, we want to make sure the fundamental aspects are in place. And i would agree with you. Our First Mission should be that our children when we put them on the bus or parents drop them off at schools, that even before those children are edge kaucate they return home safely. I understand that. I have worked with Law Enforcement and i have worked with other groups to try to make our schools safe. And first and foremost, we want to be able to prevent anyone from going on to the school to akoccomplish any act of violenc. And i understand that. There are multiple programs an we are talk iing about preventi, but in the case where someone does enter on to the School Grounds and where there is an active shoot er situation, do yu believe that laws such as those pass ed in florida should those be things that we are also talking about . Should that be part of the discussion, the overall global discussion on how we are going to protect our children . I have a sophomore in high school. Every day im confident he is going to return, but we always say its not going to happen in our community. Its going to happen somewhere else. Thats not going to happen in my school. Ive seen firsthand it happen in my community. I know about i. So my question is once we get passed the things were going to try to do to first of all prevent is Arming Teachers, should that be something that we should consider as a last resort to make sure that we can stop the shooting as quickly as possible . Just to simply sum up as part of looking and address iing everything, i think we should have the conversation about everything. Whatever we can do to support our student, but recognizing that things like training, things like real world pulling the trigger is a very difficult thing to do and making sure that somebodys prepared to do that, i think miss hogg summed it up. Teachers are there to teach so it can be a big challenge to adapt to the mind set that theyre a protector with a weapon. So yes, we should consideringering on the table 100 , but as a last measure at tend of that conversation, once you hit the fundamental, you should have that conversation carefully because there are a lot of challenges associated with with it. Thank you. I apologize for going over and i yield back. Thank you. Gentleman from louisiana is recognized. Mr. Richmond. Let me thank you, mr. Chairman, for con vietnamevenin. We are all a product of our life and how we think of things ch i know the conversation about Arming Teachers. I coached high school baseball. And mr. Shakter mentioned the ability to communicate. In my life experience, i would have grave concern if there was a baseball coach if there was a active shooter situation about what happens if i have a gun and the perpetrator has a gun. And the Police Officers get there and have to decide whos the good guy and whos the bad guy. In my experience most times, people especially police, assume that im the bad guy. And that would worry me. But i dont think something that we cant have a conversation about and i think interoperaablety is important. We went through that after Hurricane Katrina where we lost 1500 people that we could not talk to each other in the fact and that when these incidents o cur, you cant talk to each other is very scary. That part of the conversation is really about limb limiting the carnage. I want us to focus on preventing it in the first place and so when we have that conversation, i think there are small steps we can take such as universal background checks. Things of that nature. Limiting the size of magazines. My question r for you u, miss hogg, would be that do you think students are ready for a see something Say Something approach which has made this county safer in airports and to terrorism and the question would be do you think our students are ready for approach like a see something Say Something . I can speak on behalf of myself, not every student. But for myself how i personally feel about the idea of see something Say Something is that although it is important, although it can prevent major things like what happened at my school, it puts a certain pressure on students. Like what happened at my school, often time, i felt as though students felt as though they were being the ones being accountable for the government and Police Officers. Even though its a good way of preventing these thicks from happening, i dont think itsic enough and much like what happened ined security in 2001, i think we need to acknowledge that there are always when you have that situation, see something Say Something, theres going to be personal vices that are injected into the minds, the souls of individuals who are being the ones who are supposed to be seeing something and saying something. I think that leads to a lot of danger with regards to whether that be a student seeing something, saying something, about a student because just because of their personal bias, racial bias or ide logic bias, if you know what im saying. I do. I think something this complex and drastic, we need a belt and suspenders type approach to it. Whether thats more School Counselors who would also have an aobl gag tigation, i look at how we fight terrorism in this country and we do it with intelligence and information gathering. I think at some point, we all have, unfortunately, that responsibility and we would hope that people dont bring in their personal bias, but its america. Were humans and a problem. As much we can prepare for the active shooter situation, to prevent it. I will tell you as parent who drops a kid off to kind garter every day possible, i am very fearful that he doesnt go home. As i bought these School Uniforms this year, mr. Schechter, im sure you had to go through this, i had to make a decision do i buy the kevin scare that goes in the backpack so i can teach him to hide behind it. Parents shouldnt have to be doing that. When i was in high school, our drills consisted of stop, drop and roll. Now the drills our children are going through are run, hide and fight. And so the real thing is that we as americans have to accept our responsibility as adults to the hate and bullying, because if its not in a school, it will be in a church like mother emanuel. If its not in a church like mother emanuel, it will be tree of life synagogue. If not there, as a Safeway Store where our colleague, Gabby Giffords was shot. If not at a score, on a baseball field where our colleague steve s was shot. We have to do a better job as americans of lead, loving and showing the leadership to preve prevent this, so i think you all did your part today by being here and i think Congress Needs to do our part by enacting those reasonable measures that can stop these things before they start. So thank you for being here. This year when the highest selling products in new jersey for going back to school were bulletproof book bags. I now recognize the gentle lady from new york, miss clark. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. I think our panelists were really lending their expertise and their common sense concerns to todays discussion. Kocolumbine, virginia tech, san hook, community college, parkland. Each time our nation experiences another School Shooting, we send out our thoughts and prayers. But thoughts and prayers dont stop bullets. 20 years have passed since columbine, but School Shootings have become only more and more common. We need to take action. We must take action. We need to and must confront, tackle and end this gun violence epidemic once and for all. Miss hogg, i want to get from you how your daily life has changed since that shooting. So when i was preparing for my testimony today and we were discussing this, i realized that pretty much everything in my life has changed. I think one of the greatest changes was the loss, not necessarily the physical loss of people like my brother and other victims and my friends that went through the School Shooting alongside me, but the loss of our past selves. Our selves who were innocent and believed this would never happen to us. I mean i could go through this specifics, but it would take me probably days, but every single as pepect of my life has changc. I was 14 when i experienced the School Shooting. And thats the age when kids are kind of ready to have that John Hughes High School experience if you know what im saying. And for me, i went directly from seems as though i had to go from childhood to adulthood and skipped that period of my life that most people do have the chance to experience where they get to be, get to be a teenager, a child. And i think about this every single day. My goal for this year was to learn how to be a teenager. And thats something that no child whos 16 should have to experience. I mean like i said the fact that im even here today, the fact that i spend my weekends on the hill when i can talking with my policymakers, everything has changed. And i really just hope that no other child has to have this experience of losing those precious teenage years where they get the chance to have, to be stupid in a sense, to have fun. But i think thats one of the greatest ways my life has affected. Thank you for sharing that with us. Miss maples. When you the testified in front of this subcommittee last year, the horrific shootings in parkland, florida, santa fe, texas, were still cent and many states were just in the beginning phases of instituting policies to improve School Safety and in some cases, gun control measures. Now over a year out, can you tell the committee of any challenges you had bhil whooil instituting new School Security measures and are there any Lessons Learned that you think are important for other states to know . Ill start out by addressing the challenges piece. Some of the challenges have been making sure that this School Districts are all get iting the relevant information in the coordinated way. We continue to work on that and something were able to do at the state level in new jersey. The implementation of the see something Say Something mr. Richmond brought up that piece, we are doing that. Weve rolled that in through an attorney generals directive that all suspicious activity, School Related threats are ro rolled into the campaign. New jersey is a little different than a lot of other states. My office coordinates everything. The bureau, the fbi, gets their leads my my hub or fusion center. A different model than other states. Getting School Districts to recognize those threats, what are threats and reporting those, thats a challenge but its something well really focused on, getting that public messaging out there. My staff is constantly engaging with the schools and one of the great benefits we have in new jersey is the department of new jersey. The commissioner has loaned us his team. They actually report to me, but theyre education employees so were really trying to get around that one common goal of coming around our schools in that way. Wouldnt think of Homeland Security and education linking up the way we do, but we do and were really focused on that. Appreciate that. Let me just close by saying that having been a victim myself, watching my colleague getting gunned down in the new york city council, that trauma never leaves you. So miss hogg, i thank you for your courage. The trauma goes beyond what anyone can imagine when youre in a space, youre a survivor. There are so many other dynamics. So i can relate to all that youve shared with us today because im still recovering to this very day. I yield back, mr. Chairman. Thanks. The gentleman from texas, mr. Green, is recognized. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I thank the Ranking Member as well. And i apologize for the condition that we find ourselves in. And i say i apologize because we have failed you. The adults have failed you. We shouldnt have allowed unlimited assault weapons on the streets. Capable of killing scores in seconds. E we failed you. We ought to do something about it. We dont have the will. Weve lost our way. We failed you. Wrooere at a point regrettably history where we have to prepare with the unthinkable to deal with the inconceivable. Thats where we are. Gone are the days when children had to have as a part of their exercise, a fire drill. Its an active Shooter Drill now. Gone are the days when there was a rumor of a person having a knife on campus at my school. And the principal just stopped everything, brought us all into the auditorium. And had a meeting. Who has the knife . Now we have assault weapons. On campuses. So we have to deal with the inconceivable. And i have to ask you about something that i regrettably must ask about, but i think we have to prepare. For this unthink able and inconceivable b b event and that would be of course whether or not were ready to deal with a chemical or biological event. We cant wait. We have to prepare for the unthinkable if we are doigoing deal with the inconceivable. So i ask as gently as i can, are we adequately prepared for an attack of this kind on a School Campus where it should never happen . Where it would be inconceivable . Are we having any drills, any information intelligence accorded our students so that they can deal with these things . Do we have proper equipment available or where are we . If were not there, then perhaps the adults wont fail us as we go forward. Im one of the adults. Would someone care to answer please . Obviously were extremely unprepared. Our country doesnt even have an active shooter policy, let alone a policy to protect us from a chemical r or biological attack. Were just trying to get teachers to teach with a locked door. Were just trying to move the need m. Were so far away from where we need to be, but we can prevent 80, 90 of these attacks. Weve got the Gold Standard in anonymous reporting app was developed in colorado. Called safe to tell. Theyve stopped thousands of young people from committing suicide. Its the homicide issue if we can stop suicide, we can stop homicide and stopped hundreds of School Shootings. Post parkland, weve had dozens of states implement those anonymous threat reporting apps. Every day, we hear in the news about Mass Shootings that are stopped by courageous people that are sending in tips and kids do it. So we can stop a lot of these as we were talking about op the prevention side, but we cant stop 100 of these. We have to be cognizant of that. Thats why what are we going to do . If a guy with a gun walks on that School Campus. How are we going to save lives . Thats what we need, that needs to be addressed. Unfortunately all over this country. Thank you. I could not agree with more. I regret that we find ourselves being reactive when we have a great opportunity to be proactive and deal with these issues such u that we wouldnt have to deal with the unthinkable. But theres a future and we still have the opportunity to change this circumstance if we would only require the courage and the will. I yield back the balance of my time. Thank the gentlemen. Id like to recognize miss jackson lee. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I want to ask for the which i remember r or gentleman from florida wants to go and ill go after him. Just want ed to offer to you, m. Chairman, thank you and to the Ranking Member for this very vital hearing and i thank the witnesses. Were sometimes in overlapping hearings and we have to make our way to an important hearing. Let me acknowledge in particular a dad who lost his son. Your face is r familiar. I know that you wish that it was not. And i thank you for putting your energy in a place where those of us who are parents would never want to imagine. I think this committee is well suited and this house and this present leadership with the members of this committee, congressman deutsche, are prepared to listen and to adhere to some of the things that we can do. We dont want to call the role but i think you know eye whooi didnt it stop at sandy hook. Why wasnt something done . We tried very hard. So i want to first start with lauren. We work a lot in houston with march for our lives. I like the word march because we follow. But i know that it is important that we act. Let me ask you this question because i have talked to teen e teenagers who like you have to learn to be a teenager. What is it like with your peers to have to live with the idea of death, death of your fellow students, death at a school site . What should we know about that as you are growing up . So for myself, because i was 14 years old when this happened as i stated previous ly, i thin thats a pivotal time in your life. I mean all of the four High School Year are a pivotal time. When a will the f your Brain Development occurs, when youre supposed to learn a lot at school and when you have Something Like a School Shooting, Something Like your friends and teachers being murdered in the classroom next to you, i think theres something drastic that happens within yourself and i think its important to address that within regards to trauma, its hard to heal when this issue continues every single day. Kind of like rubbing salt into the wound that is our trauma. I mean the previous question earlier that i was asked when it was how has your life changed, every single day. And i think just every single as pecht like when i go into a restaurant, i have to sit with my back not against the door because ill feel like somebody will come in. When i go to a movie theatre, i have to always make sure i know where the exits are and now if i can be close enough to run out in time. Eve nn crowded spaces, places i use d to go and love to go to, whether that be disney land or a concert, i cant go there without being scared that somethings going to happen. Even the things that would be traditionally viewed as fun and an escape turn into themselves an act of trauma where you dont know what to do and dont know how to act. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Let me ask alex father. Ooichl going to give you a combined answer. You obviously cant hear that from alex. But for us to do something along with what weve heard from our experts, youre an expert in terms of making a school solid. But in doing this comprehensively, we have to deal with guns. This is my question. Mental health and added resources for those students we miss. Ive been working on for many years r antibullying, which has accelerated, Cyber Bullying and otherwise and then a positive way of reenforcing schools. So would you responz to that in the context of your organization and your group . Mental health, antibullying, guns. And the idea of how we strengthen a school to protect its most precious inhabitants. Im on the commission thats investigating the marjory Stoneman Douglas tragedy and we had a presentation by Flagler High School which developed a culture in Climate Survey that they give the tribute to all of their students and its made their school safe. That i think that sets a deficiency in our schools the that were not doing Culture Climate surveys of our students and teachers because to reduce violence on campus, reduce bullying if we dont know whats happening on campus, we cant fix it. I alluded in my presentation and in questions we dont know, schools underreport violence on campus. We need to get an accurate reporting. In florida, we require schools to report in violence and we came to the conclusion that what theyre reporting is absolutely garbage and its totally incorrect. We have now put measures in place to the commissioner of education to financially penalize superintendents that consistently underreport School Violence. So we need to get that under control, but we need to find out whats happening first so that we can tackle this bullying problem and we can provide better Mental Health to our students and reduce violence on campus, which will reduce violence in our community because if were not giving kids when theyre in school the tools to deal with rejection and failure as they get older, we have horrible koconsequences. Let me thank you and the experts as well, my time has expired. Let me say to the chairman using the experts, using the passion of our two witnesses who have experienced it firsthand can help us be guided in the right direction. For working on this very crucial issue. With that, mr. Chairman, i yield back. From. Id like to thank the gentle lady and i recognize the gentleman from florida, mr. Deutsche. Thanks very much, mr. Chairman. Thanks to you and the Ranking Member for calling the hearing. Im grateful to you and your staff for including two of my cob stitch wents and extending invitation to me to join you as your guest. I also want to express my gratitude to the thoughtful and dedicated participation of so many members of this committee. Today. Thanks to the witnesses. All of you, for your testimony and hard work to make students safer. First id like to seek unanimous consent to enter a statement from tony, the surviving father of gina and president of parkland, a group formed by parents from Stoneman Douglas if i may. Without objection. These families have varying political view us, but when it comes to protecting our children and staff at school, we agree on three key outcomes. Secure the School Campus, implement better Mental Health programs and practice responsible firearm ownership. I hope those goals can be shared by all of us regardless of their political affiliation. Mr. Shakter and miss hogg, i feel so fortunate to know you so proud to represent you. And so utterly heartbroken by the circumstances that have brought us together. Youre survivors of this horrible crisis of gun violence in america. Mr. Shakter, you lost your beloved alex. Miss hogg, you lost friends, classmates and teachers. Alyssa, scott, martin, nicholas, erin, jamie, chris, joaquin, elena, meadow and peter were all lost at marjory Stoneman Douglas on february 14th, 2018. But youve turned your pain into action. Mr. Shakter, youve been a fierce advocate for expanding the level of expertise improve policies. Youve become an expert in security infrastructure. I knew from the first moment i spoke with you that within a short period of time, you would be a National Leader on keeping our schools safe. So i want to ask you the eagles act, hr 3714, will expand the National Threat assessment center. By doing that, what can that do to help ensure that schools have the expertise to keep their students and staff safe . Thank you, congressman and for everything youve youve dope to protect our children. Youve been a great champion of that. As far as the eagles act goes, i talked about this my opening statement. Im a strong supporter. I hope that we can get the full committees support and pass this, it is great legislation. We know that threat assessment teams that the secret service has developed protect the president and protect congress. And this is a major problem in schools. We know that threat assessments work but you know, it needs to be done correctly. The, there was a threat assessment done on the murderer in 2016 that was completely botched. The problem was the assistant principal that did the threat assessment had no idea how to perform one. He had never conducted a threat assessment in his 30 year history. He didnt know where the paperwork was and it was completely done wrong. I feel if it was done correctly, my little boy might be still alive today. So by passing the eagles act, we can give education to all schools on proper threat assessments to prevent these acts of targeting violence before they happen. And weve got to stop being reactionary and be proactive. Thats what threat assessments do. Thank you very much. Miss hogg, thanks for your leadership in your school and across the country and thanks for your powerful testimony today. The march for our lives peace plan for a safer america includes a call among other things for Community Based solutions. Part of that call, you support representative moore oes bill, the national deescalation of violence and Safety Training act. One thing you cehavent had an opportunity to talk about is why Community Base d intervention i such an important part of your peace plan. Community based intervention programs as weve talked about todayi today earlier happen, as i stated previously. Its so important for us, when we created this plan, to include that because we have seen across the country, especially in communities of color and lower socioeconomic communities, how effective these are in preventing Community Gun violence. I have so many examples of individuals and stats about stuff with regards to violence intervention programs, but one of the greatest examples is life camp. Its out of the bronx, founded by this woman named erica ford. They have violence interrupters that go in and train youth from the community how to be violence interrupters instead of inciters of this violence and how to keep out of this violence. I think if we could apply that to our School System across the country, i cannot even imagine the great effects we would see in preventing things like what happened at our school. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, i want to just thank you again. Its so clear from the testimony today, from the expertise on this panel, from the dedication of all four of our panelists that there is more that we can do in a bipartisan way to help strengthen and bolster the efforts of our witnesses and people just like them all around the country to help keep our school safe and to help keep kids safe and to prevent the kind of trauma that weve heard so eloquently spoken about. We can do t im so grateful for your leadership on this issue. I look forward to working with you. Again, youre extending an invitation for me to join you today is something that i will forever be grateful for. Id like to thank the gentleman for accepting the invitation. Theyre very fortunate to have you as their representative in congress. I know the work that you do tirelessly for your constituents. And you have been proactive on these issues. So i just thought it was fair you had the opportunity today to be here. So thank you. Were going to go for a quick second round. I just wanted to ask, mr. Maples, as i mentioned in my opening statement, dhs along with other agencies is working on a Clearing House that will compile best practices for various School Safety practices. Can you describe what you want to see out of Clearing House to make it useful for new jersey . Sure. Absolutely. So one of my roles, in addition to being the director of Homeland Securitying im also the federally designated Homeland Security adviser, which is a dhs designation. We work hand in hand with federal dhs on the wide variety of issues that we confront in the state of new jersey. I lead in to say that from a Clearing House perspective, we absolutely welcome that. I think a place for a structured, directed, and concise plan, the best practices themselves, can really help us bolster what were trying to do at the state level. We do a lot proactively in new jersey, but having that federal interface and being able to point that back to someone from a federal government can be very powerful in talking to a superintendent across our 21 counties. So to the degree that the Clearing House is coming online, we welcome it. And i think that it will continue to help make our school safe. Thank you. Let me just i dont want to keep people much longer. I just want to thank all the witnesses for their testimony today. This has been an honor for me to chair this hearing and hear from all of you. All with different experiences on this one very important subject. You brought up interoperability, which has been my main focus since 2012, arriving here on this committee and the author of the interoperability bill for dhs. Just issues around School Safety has been my main thrust. So thank all of you for being here today for your expert testimony. With that, i will theres something i have to do. Okay. Now that weve finished with our questions, i would like to ask unanimous consent to enter into the official record written testimony from the National Association of School Resource officers, every town for gun safety, sandy hook promise, National Association of school psychologists, the naacp Legal Defense fund, and materials from the American Institute of architects. Without objection, so ordered. I want to thank the witnesses for their valuable testimony today and the members for their questions. The members of the subcommittee may have additional questions for the witnesses, and we ask that you respond expeditiously in writing to those questions. Pursuant to the Committee Rule 7d, the hearing record will be open for ten days. Without objection, hear nothing further business, the subcommittee stands adjourned. This afternoon commerce secretary wilbur ross and others will talk about the administrations trade policy agenda. That will be live from the Federalist Society starting at 12 30 eastern on cspan2. On cspan today the assistant defense secretary for indopacific Security Affairs Randall Schriver will talk about u. S. china relations at 12 45 p. M. Eastern. You can follow all of our coverage online at spon. Org or listen with the free cspan radio app. Follow cspan as Congress Returns to capitol hill today. After a twoweek recess with house committees working on impeachment inquiries against president trump, legislation to lower Prescription Drug costs and cushing the outsourcing of u. S. Jobs. And the Senate Continues work on the president s executive and judicial nominations, including air force secretary nominee barbara barrett. Watch live gaveltogavel coverage on cspan, cspan2, cspan. Org or using the free cspan radio app. A new cspan ipsos poll shows americas changes to how states conduct elections. A small majority agree president ial candidates should be required to release their recent tax returns in order to appear on the ballot. While only 26 of republicans agree, threequarters of democrats and 57 of independents support the idea. There is greater partisan consensus on passing laws that require people to show governmentissued ids before voting. The poll indicates that 78 of americans support such voter id laws. This includes significant majorities of republicans, democrats and independents. In addition to requiring candidates to release their tax returns and passing voter id laws, majorities of americans also favor making election day a national holiday, randomizing the order in which candidate names appear on the ballot, automatically registering all citizens to vote, and allowing people convicted of felonies to vote after they have served their sentences. You can dive deeper into the numbers at cspan. Org