On May 7, Governor Doug Ducey signed into law a school safety bill from the 2019 Arizona Legislative session which will require all school district governing boards and charter school governing bodies to put policy and procedures into place for reporting suspected crimes.

House Bill 2119, sponsored by Representative Nancy Barto, requires that school boards create a documented policy/procedure for dealing with serious offenses as outlined in ARS 13-706, or acts involving “A deadly weapon or dangerous instrument or serious physical injury and any conduct that poses a threat of death or serious physical injury to an employee, student or other person on the school property” be documented and reported to local law enforcement.

Along with requiring schools to report to law enforcement, H.B 2119 requires that schools also have procedures in place to notify the parents or guardians of students involved in the serious offense.

Fountain Hills Unified School District’s current policy for dealing with threating behavior has school administration officials taking the lead on reacting to and investigating threating behavior.

“All of the serious offenses outlined in ARS 13-706 that the bill references would require law enforcement involvement,” Superintendent Dr. Robert Allen explained. “In other instances where a student exhibits threatening behavior toward a school staff member or another student, school administration would determine what immediate level of administrative intervention is needed to ensure safety and, if lockdown procedures need to be implemented, the school resource officer needs to be called; or a 911 call needs to be made. Once the immediate ‘threat’ has been contained, the site administrator conducts an investigation and/or hands over the investigation to law enforcement. Based on the results of the investigation, the appropriate parents/guardians would be contacted and made part of the process going forward.”

The policy is the same at all three FHUSD sites and Allen said that the principals at each school would utilize the school resource officer to determine if the student’s behavior warrants police notification or just normal school disciplinary consequences.

House Bill 2119 also requires schools to post the procedures on their website by Jan. 1 2020.

FHUSD will work with other districts to make sure that they are compliant with state law.

“The district is also a member of the Arizona School Boards Association and has access to model school policy that complies with both state and federal law,” Allen said. “As the implications of this law become more clear, we will work with AZBA, as will all districts, to update district policies to ensure compliance.”