Senate committee advances change to school fire alarm policies after hearing from mother of Covenant shooting victim

Abby McLean’s children are among those who survived last March’s Covenant school shooting that claimed the lives of three children and three staff members.The tragedy convinced McLean to join others who pushed for tighter gun regulations in the state last year and Wednesday she returned to the Tennessee General Assembly to help bring another Covenant mother’s voice in support of school safety.McLean read a letter from Erin Kinney, the mother of Covenant victim William Kinney, to members of the Senate Education Committee in support of Senator Ferrell Haile’s, R-Gallatin, bill to change fire alarm policies in schools.“As loud as you might think an indoor rifle fire would be, most of the time people in classrooms, around the corner, or on another floor cannot hear it and they have no idea that there is a threat to their lives other than fire. They only hear the overwhelming shrillness of the fire alarm, and children and teachers will evacuate as they are trained,” wrote Kinney. “Given that no child has died in a school fire in decades, but yet our children continue to be slaughtered by gunmen in school, it is time for a change in approach.”Kinney wrote that when the smoke from the shooter’s rifle set off the fire alarm, her son began evacuating with his classmates as the line leader. During that evacuation Kinney encountered the shooter who killed him along with classmates, Evelyn Dieckhaus, and Hallie Scruggs.“Previously effective policies must be adjusted. Numerous could be saved by simply pausing, briefly locking down anytime there is an unscheduled fire alarm to assess the situation. Policies should give school authorities a few seconds or moments to determine either in real time or with surveillance equipment whether there is a fire or an active shooter threat before advising teachers to proceed with a continued lockdown or evacuation,” wrote Kinney.Haile’s legislation aims to do just that.The bill would require each school district, public charter school, private school, and church-related school to create a policy for how students, teachers, faulty, staff, and substitute faculty should respond when a fire alarm is activated outside of scheduled drills.This would include having designations such as different rings when the alarm goes off.“(To) bring to your memory, the Covenant shooting that the fire alarm went off because of the smoke, folks, students went out into the hall and became targets of the shooter,” said Haile. “This is something very simple, but that will save lives. Hopefully this would not occur again, but if does, we need to be prepared for it.”The bill advanced to the full Senate with a unanimous vote.

Conflict resolution curriculum also advances

The Senate Education Committee also advanced Senator London Lamar’s, D-Memphis, bill to require students to learn conflict resolution in schools.Conflict resolution is the process of ending a dispute in a peaceful way and reaching an agreement or solution that satisfies all parties involved. While Tennessee has programs that incorporate conflict resolution strategies, there is currently not a comprehensive conflict resolution program in schools for K-12 to take advantage of.Lamar’s bill would rectify that by establishing conflict resolution programs in school districts and public charter schools.School leaders would have the autonomy to set up and format the program how they see fit.“The focus has mainly been on, prior to my bill, K-6. And we’re allowing those resources to be put together and allowing those resources to be put together and allow those from K-12 to take advantage of them,” said Lamar.Representatives from TDOE told senators that the department would be able to implement the program with existing resources and programs currently in place.The bill found support from Senators Rusty Crowe, R-Johnson City, who believes a dedicated program for the schools would be a good idea.“I think it’s a good idea. I guess what you can do, and maybe what Senator Lamar is thinking, take those bits and pieces of all those you have and put them together in one nice program for the schools that can be used for conflict resolution. I mean, gosh knows we’ve got plenty of conflict out there, and finding ways to resolve that is a good thing,” said Crowe.Senator Joey Hensley, R-Hohenwald, was sole vote against the bill.