HARRISBURG – The non-partisan Legislative Budget and Finance Committee (LBFC) issued a comprehensive report this week that details the progress Pennsylvania has made on school safety issues since the establishment of Act 44 of 2018.
Senator Scott Martin (R-Lancaster), who was one of the lead authors of Act 44, led Senate passage of a resolution last year directing LBFC to study the school safety programs created under the law and explore any changes necessary to ensure students have a safe learning environment.
The LBFC report indicated that Act 44 “has undoubtedly improved school safety in Pennsylvania.”
“It is extremely encouraging to hear that our focus on school safety over the past several years has yielded positive results in terms of equipping schools with the tools they need to keep kids safe,” Martin said. “Protecting our schools is an evolving process, and I am grateful that the LBFC undertook this process and offered recommendations for us to promote a safe learning environment for students going forward.”
Act 44 created Pennsylvania’s School Safety and Security Grant Program, formed the Safe2Say Something (S2SS) anonymous school threat reporting system, and created the School Safety and Security Committee under the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD).
LBFC noted the School Safety and Security Committee helped disburse more than $600 million to school entities since 2018. The number of school entities participating in the grant program grew by 44 percent over the initiative’s first three years.
According to the report, the most frequent use of this funding was to improve student behavioral and mental health (54 percent) and security planning, technology and equipment, and security training (19 percent).
The report also noted, “based on analysis of the data contained in the annual reports, we found the S2SS program to be successful.” The program has received more than 146,000 tips of potential dangers to students, and the number of tips submitted continues to increase, up nearly 40 percent from the beginning of the program in 2018. LBFC noted the increase demonstrates more students are aware of the tip line and how to utilize it to report potential threats to student safety.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday recently said the program helped keep more than 120 weapons out of schools based on tips submitted by students.
The report offered recommendations to further safeguard Pennsylvania’s schools, including measures to strengthen the school safety assessment process, ensure timely resolution and reporting of tips to Safe2Say, establishing performance metrics on school safety, develop annual reporting requirements on school safety and security, establish a youth/student advisory board, and more.
CONTACT: Jason Thompson