S105 - 2021 Appropriations Act. (SL 2021-180)

Overview: Section 7.30 of S.L. 2021-180 establishes in statute the powers and duties of the Center for Safer Schools (Center), including the following:

• Serving as a resource and referral center for the State by conducting research, sponsoring workshops, and providing information regarding current school safety concerns.
• Providing training, resources, and professional development on topics related to school safety, including responsibilities and best practices for school resource officers, youth mental health, threat assessments, active shooter drills and scenarios incident de-escalation, reunification of schools and school districts after an incident.
• Providing information on certain topics, including bullying, suicide, opioid and substance abuse, critical incidents, trauma and victimization among students, and impacts of incidents on school climate and school safety.
• Maintaining and disseminating information to public schools on effective school safety initiatives in North Carolina and across the nation.
• Collecting, analyzing, and disseminating various North Carolina school safety data.
• Providing technical and instructional assistance to facilitate the development of partnerships between the public and private sectors to promote school safety in North Carolina.
• Recommending a system of accountability to the General Assembly to document school safety exercises and assisting law enforcement officers assigned to schools and their agencies in active shooter response drills and other pertinent school safety related training.
• Collaborating with the North Carolina Justice Academy, the North Carolina Criminal Justice Education and Training Standards Commission, and the North Carolina Sheriffs' Education and Training Standards Commission to establish and maintain updated training curricula for school resource officers.
• Coordinating grants for school resource officers in elementary and middle schools and ensuring that training requirements for school resource officers funded by those grants are met.
• Providing technical assistance to public school units in the development and implementation of initiatives promoting school safety.

The Center must coordinate, collaborate, and seek information from State and local government agencies as necessary to carry out its duties, and such agencies must provide information upon request to the Center. The Center must also receive guidance from the Task Force for Safer Schools.

Public school units must report certain information annually to the Center on school resource officers. The Center must compile that information and report annually by March 1 on the information at the statewide and local levels to the Joint Legislative Education Oversight Committee (JLEOC) and the State Board of Education.

The Center must enter into a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Department of Public Safety (DPS) to provide training, resources, and professional development on school safety in facilities owned by DPS. By January 15, 2022, and each October thereafter in which the MOU is executed, the Center, in conjunction with DPS, must report to the JLEOC, the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Justice and Public Safety, the Senate Appropriations/Base Budget Committee, the House Committee on Appropriations, and the Fiscal Research Division on the MOU.

This section became effective November 18, 2021.