What many lawmakers marked as the top legislative priority of the current general assembly session won final passage Thursday. It is a bill with bipartisan support.
Kentucky lawmakers were in session a little over a year ago when they got word of a fatal school shooting in western Kentucky. Legislators then began to investigate ways to improve school safety. The result is a comprehensive measure which calls for more school security, guidance counselors, and mental health services.
Campbellsville Senator Max Wise said the new state school security marshal will have important responsibilities. “For the accountability to allow them to conduct on-site visits to ensure compliance to ensure that our schools are following the appropriate protocols and procedures of keeping our schools safe,” said Wise.
Decisions about funding all these school safety initiatives will come next year. Wise told his colleagues that could be a much-debated topic. Senate President Robert Stivers said various needs to be addressed with state dollars. “There’s going to have to be an assessment. Some of these school systems already have many of these things in place. There’s going to have to be hard-dollar contribution. If you don’t know what that is, that’s construction,” noted Stivers.
Stivers and Minority Floor Leader Morgan McGarvey along with other members of the Senate spoke of strong a bi-partisan effort in developing the bill and moving the legislation to final passage.
