Amy Rock (00:00): Hi everyone, and welcome to today's podcast where we will discuss Alyssa's Law and the potential of it becoming a federal law. My name is Amy Rock. I'm Campus Safety’s executive editor, and joining me today is Lauren Kravetz, VP of Government Affairs at Intrado Life Safety. Lauren also previously served as Chief of Staff for the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau at the Federal Communications Commission.
And for those who don't know, Alyssa's Law came about after the 2018 mass shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. And the law is named after Alyssa Alhadeff, who was one of the students who was killed in mandates that K to 12 public schools be equipped with silent panic alarms that notify law enforcement during emergency. And now Oklahoma was, I believe, the seventh state to adopt Alyssa's law back in July. In addition to Florida, New Jersey, New York, Texas, Utah, and Tennessee. And other states are considering its adoption, including Nebraska, Arizona, Virginia, Oregon, Georgia, Michigan, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Alabama. And so it kind of seems safe to say it's legislation that many feel it's necessary and effective, and therefore there have been discussions of it becoming a federal law. Now, Lauren, from the perspective of a former employee of the FCC, why do you think a federal version of Alyssa's law could have a significant impact nationwide?
Lauren Kravetz (01:22): Well, a federal Alyssa's law would avoid creating a patchwork of state and territorial laws that focus on potentially different things to promote school safety. The best way to illustrate how challenging this patchwork could be is to look at what's happening now with privacy. There's no federal law nationwide. There's no standard for what personal information needs to be protected and how. So states are filling that gap and they're enacting their own laws to protect their consumers, which is creating a situation where different states potentially protect different things in different ways, and this places different burdens on private companies, which makes it significantly more difficult to serve consumers in more than one state. So applied to school safety, having potentially dozens of different state laws out there would add complication versus having one law that covers the entire country and makes it less likely that certain states would require a bespoke solution.
Having the uniformity of federal law would make things smoother, probably cheaper, and allow for faster development and deployment. I think plus, the longer it takes to enact a federal law, the more complicated it becomes to actually enact one, because states that have an Alyssa’s Law will want to ensure that a federal law will not clash with what they've already done, or worse, that it would not preempt their state's law bottom line. The longer it takes to move the federal legislation, the more difficult it could become to arrive at something that everyone can get behind. But at the end of the day, the most important thing is that where you live should not determine how safe your child is at school. And that's really the most important reason why a federal law makes the most sense to make sure that students are protected in every state.
Amy Rock (03:17): Well said. And now kind of the same question through the lens of your current role, why do you think it would be effective? And I'm sure there's an overlap.
Lauren Kravetz (03:27): Well, honestly, my answer is pretty much the same today as it was when I was a government official, but now that I'm on the technology industry side as opposed to the government side, I see what a challenge it really is. Having a patchwork of differing state and territorial laws could be a significant challenge for companies, and it is a significant challenge for companies that are developing the technology to meet the needs of several different laws and create solutions that will scale set in another way, solutions that are affordable both to produce and to purchase. I think a good analogy here is standards for cars. The variety of state laws regarding emissions for example, creates challenges for car manufacturers to make cars that they can sell nationwide, and this potentially makes cars more expensive in certain areas.
Amy Rock (04:16): Your statement about being equally safe no matter what state you're in, made me also think of car seats, for instance. There's different price points, but they all have to meet the same crash test standards. So just because if you have the ability to buy a $500 car seat, but someone else can only afford one for $25, they need to ensure that your child is just as safe in it. So that's what made me think of that when you said that.
Lauren Kravetz (04:46): Yeah, exactly the same point.
Amy Rock (04:48): Now, what do you think would the core components and requirements likely be if there were to be a federal law for this?
Lauren Kravetz (04:56): Well, there are several federal bills out there right now that address school safety in some way. I'm going to focus on two of them. The first one is the Alyssa Act, which was introduced by Representative Gottheimer of New Jersey. It has 28 co-sponsors, which is really significant. It's very bipartisan. We're really proud to support this bill. This bill would incentivize adopting a silent panic alarm technology solution by conditioning the receipt of funds under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act on schools being equipped with at least one silent panic alarm. The other bill, the Safer Schools Act of 2023, introduced by representatives Williams of Texas and Moskowitz Florida, also bipartisan, I think slightly fewer co-sponsors, but I haven't checked in the last couple of days. This bill would establish a grant program of $600 million over five years administered by the Department of Justice. It's written to encourage schools to conduct an independent security assessment and then make hard security improvements as a condition of receiving the grant.
And hard security improvements could include silent alarm systems. The grants would cover 50% of the cost with the school district providing the rest. The important thing about both of these bills is they're bipartisan school safety is something we should all be able to agree on as a priority. The Alyssa Act would require schools to have silent alarms to reduce emergency response times, provide first responders as much information as possible with direct connections to 911. The Safer Schools Act is based on schools doing a security assessment, and it encourages silent alarms. But most important, that one creates a funding mechanism. There's a lot to in both of these bills, and we need communities to tell Congress that they matter. But you asked about the federal laws, but as you mentioned, seven states have an Alyssa Act, Alyssa's Law. I want to also mention that there's two additional states we didn't talk about a couple minutes ago that have enacted related laws that could support silent panic alarms and related technology.
As I read it, Maryland's recently created school safety grant program would cover upgrades including silent alarms, and also Rhode Island just this past summer enacted a lot that requires, among other things that schools had safety and emergency response plans. And again, as I read it, these could involve security devices like silent alarms, but they don't specifically call out silent panic alarms. If I had to guess, or rather, my prognostication is that the states that have a chance of still enacting something this year are the ones whose legislatures are still in session. So that would be Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, maybe Massachusetts. The key momentum is while there is some federal legislation, it's bipartisan, it's important. The clear momentum is at the state level right now to enact laws that improve school safety and emergency response by leveraging technology. So the federal discussion's important, but the momentum is at the state level
Amy Rock (08:26): And you had mentioned the importance of funding. I know in Texas, after the Rob Elementary shooting, they made it up, I think it was a state requirement to have an SRO in each school. And schools are now currently still having an issue with that because they don't have enough funding for it. So it's, okay, here's this requirement that you need in order to get funding for your public schools, but we are not going to give you enough money to hire these people. So the importance of the funding being there when there's a requirement is obviously critical. You can't have a requirement, and if they can't afford it, they can't afford it.
Lauren Kravetz (09:11): Yeah, we're seeing that in the 911 area as well. And I know we're talking here about school safety, but in the 911 area, there are still about half the states that are working off of the older legacy technology for 911 and have not found funds yet to upgrade to the next generation technology for 911. And there is a similar issue at the federal level now with is there going to be any sort of federal money coming out to help states upgrade for 911?
Amy Rock (09:42): Yeah, and we know Covid messed that up because there were funds in place for certain initiatives, and then they were just kind of gone when the COVID money was gone, but they were still required to have certain things in place and not just school safety special ed programs and things like that. So it's a lot for schools right now. Now, if this became a federal law, what federal agencies would likely be involved in establishing guidelines for Alyssa's Law and why would or should those agencies be involved?
Lauren Kravetz (10:14): All right. First, I hope I'm being really clear that I think we absolutely must have a federal response to school safety, and we should take a whole of government approach. I could imagine several different agencies having a role. Of course, the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, of course, probably a role somewhere for the Department of Education, maybe even the FCC because of their responsibility to regulate 911. If a plan for federal funding is adopted. I could see the Department of Justice being involved to create and administer a grant program such as the one that's called for in the Williams-Moskowitz bill. The Department of Homeland Security would likely be more of a convener on this, but providing information through school safety.gov portal on available grants. However, DHS is a department that is used to administering grants. So I would think it's possible that DHS could be called on to administer a program like this.
Somehow. I have not heard the Department of Education being looked at as a source to administer or fund a grant program. And I don't see the FCC having much of a role, at least the way the current federal bills are drafted. The FCC regulates, this is something I know, something about the FCC regulates entities that provide the underlying communications such as at t and sets the standards for network and 911 reliability. For example, the FCC requires that all 911 calls be completed and with caller location information, the FCC also allocates how the airwaves are used, for example, for cell phones and wifi and how to get a license to use the airwaves. The fccs work touches schools most directly through a program to ensure that schools and libraries have broadband service. So I'm not sure I see a direct role here for the FCC at least based on what we're seeing right now in the federal legislation, administering a grant program would probably be DOJ or maybe DHS.
Amy Rock (12:28): Okay. And now I would say it's safe to assume you've had a lot of conversations with people in the education market in those discussions. What are some, or maybe there aren't any, but if there are, what are some hesitations or limitations behind adopting silent panic alarms?
Lauren Kravetz (12:45): Okay. I don't work directly in the education world, but I do interact with some of our customers and folks in Washington DC who are involved in education policy. And I do hear some things they have to say. The biggest thing I've heard is that some teachers and faculty may not want to have an app on their personal phone that activates a silent alarm, and instead would rather wear a silent panic button about the size of a credit card on a lanyard. And actually, this is part of Rados solution too. Secondly, cost is a concern. Third, I see a need, and this is sort of the sleeper issue. I see a need for more awareness in the education community about how the technology for these solution works. We're still in early innings here, and it's important to help schools and educators understand the value and why they should expend time and resources to make use of these tools. For example, I've heard a couple questions about whether emergency responders will have school specific information when an emergency happens. The answer is that at least I can only really speak to Entrada Safety Suite solution. But at least with our solution, they certainly will. But it takes more than just the panic buttons. And maybe that's why there's a question here. The panic buttons are one element and they have to be connected to an incident management platform. Think of it as the brain that will enable the direct integration to 911.
And as I mentioned, the direct integration to 911 is key to reducing the emergency response times. And I think this is a really good moment for the education community to take a beat and educate itself, no pun intended, on what the solutions are that are out there. Also, this is a big one. I think schools need to be thinking more about bringing public safety to the table. Earlier on, I've heard too many stories about the 911 centers that found out after the fact that the school district was purchasing a safety solution. The public safety folks should be part of the conversation from the beginning. We really need to promote a collaborative ecosystem where 911 call centers, schools, and first responders all work together. And that sort of relationship is a basic of emergency preparedness that we work on for emergency response at the federal level all the time.
Amy Rock (15:18): That's actually a perfect segue into the last question that I had. And we obviously know several states have passed a law already. So for other states that might have the law go into effect, what are some strategy schools and agencies have garnered to ensure unified integration between schools, law enforcement and emergency first responders?
Lauren Kravetz (15:40): Well, it is the case that almost no community in the country has escaped being touched by the need for greater school safety. And it seems to me everyone recognizes the need to put in place solutions that are going to work for students across the nation in every school. Again, a key tenet of emergency preparedness, whether we're talking about school safety, disaster response, such as the hurricane response we're experiencing right now, coordination, excuse me, coordination, openness, communication is the key. This means reaching out to develop, maintain an ongoing relationship between local public safety agencies and schools, and especially those 911 telecommunicators who work at the local 911 center. It will also take communities voicing their need for a federal school safety solution. So I encourage anyone to call their member of Congress or their senators, but coordination early transparency in everyone's needs and ongoing communication between schools and 911 centers. I can't stress that enough.
Amy Rock (17:14): Now, this is a tough question, but if you had to guess a timeline for it becoming a federal law, is there anything that's indicating when that's coming, when it might be coming?
Lauren Kravetz (17:26): Well, what I can say is that there has not been much movement on any of the school safety bills in Congress since they were introduced. They would need to be subject, they'd need to have a couple hearings, and then once they pass through committee, they would need to find time. They would need to get what we call floor time for a vote. I doubt anything. I seriously doubt there's any chance of anything moving this Congress. Both houses of Congress have adjourned until after the election. After the election. There are some key things that they need to take up in the lame duck session, but I really don't think there's any chance it'll happen this Congress. So what that means is the sponsors of these bills will need to reintroduce them in the next Congress, and it depends on what sort of momentum they can create, which is why it's important for us to reach out to our members of Congress and Senators.
We've reached out to the sponsors, the key sponsors of the legislation to say, what can we do to help move this forward? We're trying to create some momentum for hearings to happen, and we'll be looking to do that when the bills are reintroduced next session. So I would say, how long would it take for a bill to be enacted at least a year, but then it has to be a bill that has a funding mechanism. And for example, if we're talking about when does this mean that schools could actually access funds for these solutions, federal funds for these solutions, it'll take at least another period of time, maybe another year for DOJ or DHS to stand up a grant program and for schools to take the necessary action to develop the plans that would help them access the grants. So I know I'm speaking very slowly and carefully, but I'd have to say we're still looking at a couple years.
