1001.212 Office of Safe Schools.—There is created in the Department of Education the Office of Safe Schools. The office is fully accountable to the Commissioner of Education. The office shall serve as a central repository for best practices, training standards, and compliance oversight in all matters regarding school safety and security, including prevention efforts, intervention efforts, and emergency preparedness planning. The office shall:
(1) Establish and update as necessary a school security risk assessment tool for use by school districts pursuant to s. 1006.07(6). The office shall make the security risk assessment tool available for use by charter schools. The office shall provide annual training to appropriate school district and charter school personnel on the proper assessment of physical site security and completion of the school security risk assessment tool.
(2) Provide ongoing professional development opportunities to school district and charter school personnel.
(3) Provide a coordinated and interdisciplinary approach to providing technical assistance and guidance to school districts on safety and security and recommendations to address findings identified pursuant to s. 1006.07(6).
(4) Develop and implement a School Safety Specialist Training Program for school safety specialists appointed pursuant to s. 1006.07(6). The office shall develop the training program which shall be based on national and state best practices on school safety and security and must include active shooter training. The office shall develop training modules in traditional or online formats. A school safety specialist certificate of completion shall be awarded to a school safety specialist who satisfactorily completes the training required by rules of the office.
(5) Review and provide recommendations on the security risk assessments. The department may contract with security personnel, consulting engineers, architects, or other safety and security experts the department deems necessary for safety and security consultant services.
(6) Coordinate with the Department of Law Enforcement to provide a unified search tool, known as the Florida School Safety Portal, to improve access to timely, complete, and accurate information from, at a minimum, the following data sources:
(a) Social media Internet posts;
(b) The Department of Children and Families;
(c) The Department of Law Enforcement;
(d) The Department of Juvenile Justice;
(e) The mobile suspicious activity reporting tool known as FortifyFL;
(f) School environmental safety incident reports collected under subsection (8); and
(g) Local law enforcement.
Data that is exempt or confidential and exempt from public records requirements retains its exempt or confidential and exempt status when incorporated into the centralized integrated data repository. To maintain the confidentiality requirements attached to the information provided to the centralized integrated data repository by the various state and local agencies, data governance and security shall ensure compliance with all applicable state and federal data privacy requirements through the use of user authorization and role-based security, data anonymization and aggregation and auditing capabilities. To maintain the confidentiality requirements attached to the information provided to the centralized integrated data repository by the various state and local agencies, each source agency providing data to the repository shall be the sole custodian of the data for the purpose of any request for inspection or copies thereof under chapter 119. The department shall only allow access to data from the source agencies in accordance with rules adopted by the respective source agencies and the requirements of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Criminal Justice Information Services security policy, where applicable.
(7) Provide data to support the evaluation of mental health services pursuant to s. 1004.44. Such data must include, for each school, the number of involuntary examinations as defined in s. 394.455 which are initiated at the school, on school transportation, or at a school-sponsored activity and the number of children for whom an examination is initiated.
(8) Provide technical assistance to school districts and charter school governing boards for school environmental safety incident reporting as required under s. 1006.07(9). The office shall collect data through school environmental safety incident reports on incidents involving any person which occur on school premises, on school transportation, and at off-campus, school-sponsored events. The office shall review and evaluate school district reports to ensure compliance with reporting requirements. Upon notification by the department that a superintendent has failed to comply with the requirements of s. 1006.07(9), the district school board shall withhold further payment of his or her salary as authorized under s. 1001.42(13)(b) and impose other appropriate sanctions that the commissioner or state board by law may impose.
(9) Award grants to schools to improve the safety and security of school buildings based upon recommendations of the security risk assessment developed pursuant to subsection (1).
(10) Disseminate, in consultation with the Department of Law Enforcement, to participating schools awareness and education materials on the proper use of the School Safety Awareness Program developed pursuant to s. 943.082, including the consequences of knowingly submitting false information.
(11)(a) Convene a School Hardening and Harm Mitigation Workgroup composed of individuals with subject matter expertise on school campus hardening best practices. The workgroup shall meet as necessary to review school hardening and harm mitigation policies, including, but not limited to, the target hardening practices implemented in other states; the school safety guidelines developed by organizations such as the Partner Alliance for Safer Schools; the tiered approach to target campus hardening strategies identified in the initial report submitted by the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission pursuant to s. 943.687(9); and the Florida Building Code for educational facilities construction to determine whether the building code may need to be modified to strengthen school safety and security. Based on this review of school safety best practices, by August 1, 2020, the workgroup shall submit a report to the executive director of the office which includes, at a minimum, a prioritized list for the implementation of school campus hardening and harm mitigation strategies and the estimated costs of and timeframes for implementation of the strategies by school districts and charter schools. The estimated costs must include regional and statewide projections of the implementation costs.
(b) Submit to the commissioner:
1. The workgroup’s report pursuant to paragraph (a); and
2. Recommendations regarding procedures for the office to use to monitor and enforce compliance by the school districts and charter schools in the implementation of the workgroup’s recommended campus hardening and harm mitigation strategies.
This subsection is repealed June 30, 2023.
(12) By August 1, 2019, develop a standardized, statewide behavioral threat assessment instrument for use by all public schools, including charter schools, which addresses early identification, evaluation, early intervention, and student support.
(a) The standardized, statewide behavioral threat assessment instrument must include, but need not be limited to, components and forms that address:
1. An assessment of the threat, which includes an assessment of the student, family, and school and social dynamics.
2. An evaluation to determine if the threat is transient or substantive.
3. The response to a substantive threat, which includes the school response and the role of law enforcement agencies.
4. The response to a serious substantive threat, including mental health and law enforcement referrals.
5. Ongoing monitoring to assess implementation of safety strategies.
6. Training for members of threat assessment teams established under s. 1006.07(7) and school administrators regarding the use of the instrument.
(b) The office shall:
1. By August 1, 2020, evaluate each school district’s and charter school governing board’s behavioral threat assessment procedures for compliance with this subsection.
2. Notify the district school superintendent or charter school governing board, as applicable, if the behavioral threat assessment is not in compliance with this subsection.
3. Report any issues of ongoing noncompliance with this subsection to the commissioner and the district school superintendent or the charter school governing board, as applicable.
(13) Establish the Statewide Threat Assessment Database Workgroup, composed of members appointed by the department, to complement the work of the department and the Department of Law Enforcement associated with the centralized integrated data repository and data analytics resources initiative and make recommendations regarding the development of a statewide threat assessment database. The database must allow authorized public school personnel to enter information related to any threat assessment conducted at their respective schools using the instrument developed by the office pursuant to subsection (12), and must provide such information to authorized personnel in each school district and public school and to appropriate stakeholders. By December 31, 2019, the workgroup shall provide a report to the office with recommendations that include, but need not be limited to:
(a) Threat assessment data that should be required to be entered into the database.
(b) School district and public school personnel who should be allowed to input student records to the database and view such records.
(c) Database design and functionality, to include data security.
(d) Restrictions and authorities on information sharing, including:
1. Section 1002.22 and other applicable state laws.
2. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), 20 U.S.C. s. 1232g, 42 C.F.R. part 2; the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), 42 U.S.C. s. 1320d6, 45 C.F.R. part 164, subpart E; and other applicable federal laws.
3. The appropriateness of interagency agreements that will allow law enforcement to view database records.
(e) The cost to develop and maintain a statewide online database.
(f) An implementation plan and timeline for the workgroup recommendations.
(14) Develop, in coordination with the Division of Emergency Management; other federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies; fire and rescue agencies; and first responder agencies, a model family reunification plan for use by child care facilities, public K-12 schools, and public postsecondary educational institutions that are closed or unexpectedly evacuated due to a natural or manmade disaster. This model plan shall consider the integration of student information and notification systems to facilitate reunification after a natural or manmade disaster. This model plan shall be reviewed annually and updated, as applicable.
(15) Monitor compliance with requirements relating to school safety by school districts and public schools, including charter schools. The office shall report incidents of noncompliance to the commissioner pursuant to s. 1001.11(9) and the state board pursuant to s. 1008.32 and other requirements of law, as appropriate.
(16) Annually publish a list detailing the total number of safe-school officers in this state, the total number of safe-school officers disciplined or relieved of their duties because of misconduct in the previous year, the total number of disciplinary incidents involving safe-school officers, and the number of incidents in which a safe-school officer discharged his or her firearm outside of a training situation or in the exercise of his or her duties as a safe-school officer.
(17) Maintain a current directory of public school-based diversion programs and cooperate with each judicial circuit and the Department of Juvenile Justice to facilitate their efforts to monitor and enforce each governing body’s compliance with s. 985.12.
History.—s. 21, ch. 2018-3; s. 7, ch. 2019-22; s. 3, ch. 2021-176; s. 4, ch. 2022-174.
