In the ninth week of the 2024 legislative session, the senate passed a school safety bill.

Senator for District 12 Amy Sinclair says that a lot of time was put into the Informed Fire Drill Bill, a safety bill that was drafted with the intent to counteract reports of some people who wanted to do harm to students using fire alarms to get more people in one place. She explains that the bill would allow classrooms to wait a specific amount of time for maintenance staff to check and make sure the alarms are going off for a legitimate reason, and tells Raccoon Valley Radio that safety from potential fires was also thought of with the bill.

“There wasn’t a lot of pushback on the bill from anyone, really. In fact, we had worked with the fire marshal’s office to make sure that the language was right and that there was the appropriate time frame set in there so that it didn’t put kids at risk. And we think we’ve got it right. We think we’ve worked with the appropriate folks to keep kids safe. And we want school districts, as they’re developing their policies, to work with their local fire departments as well. Just making sure that they’re not overstaying, that they’re not keeping kids sheltered in place too long. But also that they’re not that immediate up out of your seats and into the hallways and possibly into the face of someone who’s there to harm them.”

Sinclair mentions that each school will have its own policy to make if the bill is passed by the House and Governor, as no two school buildings are the same.