DENVER — In 2019, an audit found Colorado's school safety programs were "not centralized" and not required to work together. The audit reported the programs create a risk of "uncoordinated efforts, gaps in services, and challenges in determining reach and impact."
A bipartisan bill moving through Colorado's state legislature is working to change that.
Senate Bill 23-241 would create an Office of School Safety within the Department of Public Safety (DPS). If passed, the office would do a number of things, including:
- overseeing the School Safety Resource Center (SSRC)
- implementing a newly created crisis response unit to assist schools in responding to a crisis or emergency event
- overseeing the School Access for Emergency Response Grant Program (SAFER), which is currently in the Division of Homeland Security in DPS
- administering a new Youth Violence Prevention Grant Program to provide grants of up to $100,000 to schools, community organizations and local governments to address youth violence
“We are providing more resources for schools across our state to make their schools more safe, to help provide important interventions to students that might be having a mental health crisis, and also providing grants to our schools across the state to do things that make sense for their schools," said state Rep. Shannon Bird (D), one of the sponsors of the bill.
Bird said the legislation recognizes that not all school districts have grant writers as part of their staff.
"Smaller school districts are going to need support. They're going to need the state to be in that place to help make these schools understand what's available to them, help them prepare their grant applications, and also help them structure what a safe school looks like, and what's achievable for our various schools," she said. “What might work in Delta County might not be the same needs that we have here in Denver Public Schools, or Adams 12, for example.”
The bill would also create a crisis response unit to help schools when responding to an emergency.
“We have a constitutional requirement in this state to fund a free public school system. I think it should read in our Constitution, a free and safe public school system," said state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer (R), who is another sponsor of SB 23-241. “It's about having safe schools. That means we have safe kids, right.”
The legislation also says that eligible entities could use money from the school security disbursement program to implement school resource officers (SROs) and co-responder programs.
“Basically, the Republicans are focusing on making school safer by increasing the number of properly trained school resource officers on the campus," said Kirkmeyer. “That way, they can help deter, and if necessary, stop school shooters before kids are harmed.”
When Bird, a Democrat, was asked about SROs, she said she values them at schools.
“In addition to the school resource officer idea, we need co-responders. We need grants to try to make our school buildings more safe. We need mental health interventions. So it won't be one program, it's going to be many," Bird said. “Democrats and Republicans came together. We all saw this as an important piece of the school safety, public safety conversation.”
The bill received some amendments while in the House of Representatives, and is now back in the Senate.
Currently, it would allot $26.1 million to the Department of Public Safety in fiscal year 2023-24.
