ATLANTA — State and local leaders are tackling school safety on multiple fronts this week, starting in the City of Decatur, where officials are hosting a school safety summit Wednesday.
It’s the second annual summit for the City Schools of Decatur. Superintendent Dr. Gyimah Whitaker says the district has made progress on safety initiatives over the past year, implementing several changes included in Georgia’s school safety law.
“We do have what would be our panic alert system. We do have a visitor management system. We have deployed weapons screening at both the middle schools and high schools,” Whitaker said.
Whitaker says this year’s summit will focus more on students’ psychological safety and why it matters.
“But, because of the many many many questions that our community had, we didn’t get to the psychological safety that is necessary for students,” she said.
She says the district now uses multiple tools to support students.
“We have various screeners, lessons, support staff, that all work together to triage, as well as provide true support,” Whitaker said.
The summit is open to the public, with attendees encouraged to submit questions and topics for a panel discussion with school and city safety leaders. It gets underway at 5:30 p.m. at the Performing Arts Center of Decatur High School.
The local discussion comes as state lawmakers consider new school safety measures of their own. A bill in the State House focuses on safety technology at schools statewide.
House Majority Leader Chuck Efstration says the proposal would require school districts to install weapons detection systems at school entrances, building on last year’s school safety legislation.
“The objective is to ensure that student safety continues to be a priority,” Efstration said.
Efstration says parents should feel confident when sending their children to school.
“Parents should know when they drop their kids off at school, that they’re going to be able to pick them up safely at the end of the day,” he said.
Under the proposal, districts could use school safety grants from the state to cover the cost of the systems.
“It would just be a requirement that in every Georgia public school, there be a weapons detection system by next year,” Efstration said.
Several local districts have already installed weapons detection systems, including Atlanta Public Schools, Gwinnett County, and Decatur City Schools. Those installations followed the mass shooting at Apalachee High School in September of 2024.
Efstration says expanding the technology statewide is the next step.
“We’ve had a series of years of grants and additional funding in the state’s budget for school safety. Requiring that local schools, all Georgia public schools, have weapon detection systems is really the next step,” he said.
If approved, districts would be required to install the systems by next year.
WSB Radio’s Jonathan O’Brien and Jennifer Perry contributed to this story.