Press Releases

Congressman Drew Ferguson (R-Ga.) today introduced the Supporting Teachers and Safe Students Act. The bill would amend Title II of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) to give more flexibility and support for teachers and school professionals to engage in school safety activities.

“Too often, students experiencing a mental health crisis are falling through the cracks because teachers and administrators are not adequately prepared to identify and assist those individuals,” said Ferguson. “Improving school safety will require a multi-faceted approach, and this bill ensures that we are empowering educators, of whom we ask so much, with the flexible funding they need.

The Supporting Teachers and Safe Students Act would:

• Allow the use of Title II funds to increase professional development in mental health awareness, violence prevention, crisis response, de-escalation and anger management techniques, positive behavioral interventions and supports, bullying and harassment prevention and other similar programs designed to reduce and prevent school violence.
• Clarify that Title II funds can assist local education agencies (LEA) in developing and implementing professional development on violence prevention programs and emergency response and notification systems.
• Expand Local Use of Funds to include partnerships between school-based mental health programs and law enforcement agencies, so they can work together to improve coordination of services to prevent and respond to threats.
• Allow LEA’s to use Title II funds to reduce the ratio of students to counselors, alleviating the burden on counselors and to help recruit school-based mental health services providers.

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