Student and Teacher Safety Act of 2006

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, as one of the original cosponsors of the Zero Tolerance for Guns and Weapons in Schools, I have long supported the effort to make our schools safer, and, in fact, schools are among the safest places in our entire society for children, but this legislation, I do not quite understand what it is trying to do.

The suggestion here is that if we just pass this law, that somehow schools will become safer. The fact of the matter is every school district, every State has a policy with respect to the bringing onto campus of drugs, which it is illegal to have on campus, off campus, in your own home or anywhere else, and the use in bringing on weapons, which we have a very strong zero tolerance policy against the bringing of any guns or weapons onto school sites.

It seems to me that this legislation is somehow founded in the idea that if the Congress just votes, this will, in fact, happen.

Tragically, what we have seen is while people are asking us to vote on this policy, which is already in place in most school districts, or all school districts in all of the States in accordance with the State court decisions and in accordance with the Supreme Court decisions, what we have is that the Republicans are masking the fact that what they do is they keep gutting the Safe and Drug-Free School Grants to the States. They cut those grants from $437 million in 2005 to $346 million in 2006, and the House Republicans want to cut them even further to $310 million next year.

So the very funds that this Congress has determined and we worked in partnership with States and school districts over the last several years to make our schools safer, to help educate children about the dangers not only of the drugs and of weapons and various kinds of social behavior, they are now in the process of cutting those, but they want to pass a law that says to do what we have as a matter of existing policy, except that this law, in fact, exposes the district to much more litigation now because now, under the guise of this law, they have to go back through, and if a student is searched under this law, the questions are raised all over again which many districts have tried to settle under State law, under State court interpretations, so that they can have a policy that works, that the schools are on notice of, and the students are on notice of, and that the parents are on notice of. The fact of the matter is that the policy appears to be working across this country.

So, when we get all done with this, I think what we have with this legislation is an effort to try and cover what are the more serious votes taken by this Congress to slash the funding for the Safe and Drug-Free Schools legislation.

Also, this legislation, if it were to be passed into law, fails to take into account additional legal standards that have been imposed by State courts. A uniform search policy can cause difficulties for school districts and would require it to establish policies to address requirements of H.R. 5295, as well as legal standards that apply to respective jurisdictions.

The Congressional Research Service adds that enacting Federal legislation with respect to school-based searches could, therefore, interfere with areas of traditional State and local responsibility, of which there is no showing that the States and local school authorities are not meeting their responsibilities to their students, to the teachers, to the staff in the schools, to the parents and to the communities.

The question is, I guess, just a question of whether or not you think you trust the Congress more simply to pass a law, of which there have been no hearings and no discussion with local officials about how to do this, or whether you trust the people who are running the schools--the school boards, the school administrators, the principals, the district superintendents--who, in fact, have the responsibility for the safety of the children of their districts and of their schools.

It is not much more complicated than that, and you do not have to take it from me, because the fact is that the National School Boards Association, the American Association of School Administrators, the American Federation of Teachers, the National PTA and the Great City Council Schools all oppose this legislation.

Why do they oppose this legislation? Because this legislation only makes it a very difficult job that they have been working at and policies for the safety of our students that they have been refining over the last decade.

This legislation just throws all of that open to new interpretations, to new exposure to liability on the questions of their actions that they take on a daily basis to keep our schools safe, to keep our children safe.

They understand this policy. They have developed these policies they have done in conjunction with the communities that they represent. Now Congress wants to fly over on suspension without hearings and drop down a new policy, one size sort of fits all, for all of these school districts, for all of the schools, when in fact the people we represent in our communities have been working on these policies a long time before this legislation was ever suggested. They have been working on them successfully, they have been working on them within the intricacies of State and Federal law, and they have developed the policies in cooperation with the communities and with the parents.

And I would hope that we would reject this legislation, and we would let those who have to take the responsibility, those who absorb the liability for their actions, and those who have local cooperation within their communities on engaging these policies, that they would in fact be allowed to go forward and continue those policies, and we would heed the concerns of the Congressional Research Service that we now have a Federal policy that, if it was to pass, requires this kind of reaction by all of the States to see whether or not they comply with this Federal law when in fact they are already complying with the efforts in their communities to keep their schools safe.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis).

I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey).

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

It is rather interesting that this legislation comes up with no hearings, no discussion with the school districts, no discussion with local authorities who have the obligations to meet the demands that we cavalierly talk about here. This Court decision I believe is 1985. That is what school districts have been struggling with is to try to put in a policy that meets the test of reasonableness and also protects them in terms of liability and the teacher in terms of liabilities.

We cited Columbine here. I can't believe there is a school district in Colorado that doesn't have a policy dealing with guns on campus in compliance with Federal law where there is zero tolerance for guns on campus or you can lose your funding.

Paducah, Kentucky, and the tragedy there, I can't believe there is a school district in Kentucky that has not responded in the years since those tragedies.

The fact of the matter is every school district in the country has a policy like this because they can, in fact, be sued for not having a policy, for not taking reasonable steps to protect their students and faculty and staff.

Here we have the United States Congress apparently read a report of statistics and studies of all of the activities which is illegal under State and Federal law. They have read that now and have decided 10, 20 years later that the school districts are not doing anything, are not taking action, and the Federal Government has to tell them to take this action. It is incredibly arrogant and an insult to people who every day live on the front lines for the protection of those students and those faculty members and those staff members and for those children whose charge they have to think that somehow they have not developed the best policy they possibly can within the confines of the fourth amendment, within the confines of their State interpretation of State laws.

That is what school districts struggle with all of the time. That is what they do for a living. Those are the measures they can take. This idea that somehow if you codify this Supreme Court decision, the TLO decision, that somehow if you codify this and they are immune from liability, no, they are not. Someone would go to the court and decide it was an unreasonable search, and you will be right back with liability, just as is done all of the time under the fourth amendment.

What school districts have tried to do is to build a policy over a period of years to try to make it the most effective policy and also make sure that they are not exposing the district and others to all kinds of different liabilities, but to have an effective policy.

Does anybody here suggest that is not their purpose? Does anybody suggest that they have not done this since Columbine, they have not done this since Paducah, or they have not done this since the shootings in Oregon? Of course they have.

And you know what, they would probably be in a much better standing if you would keep cutting the Safe and Drug-Free Schools Act, if you quit cutting the money that is available to them in education so they could make these policies even more effective, and they could spend even more time with the students working on why these behavior patterns should not be allowed, why schools should be a safe place, why schools should not be allowed to be the street. There should be bright lines between the schools and streets. That is what schools are seeking to do all the time.

But here is the Federal Government 10, 20 years later after the policy was announced saying, I guess you are not doing anything, and we are going to tell you to do it. We are going to tell you to do it this way or the highway.

It just doesn't make any sense. It just doesn't comport with what all of us know is going on in the districts that we represent. Either that, or you have never visited a school, you have never talked to a school administrator, or never talked to a superintendent or a teacher. The fact of the matter is that they struggle with this all of the time, and they do it within the confines of the decision that you say is controlling. They know that. That is why they hire attorneys. That is why the policy parties that are responsible for coming up with this, that is why they oppose this.

But this will be the Congress who tells them, do it our way, that is the only way; and now we will have to go back through all of these policies and start over from ground zero. It just doesn't make any sense. It denies what we all know is, in fact, taking place in school districts and schools all over this country every day as those individuals struggle to keep those educational institutions safe for the students who are attending them. I urge my colleagues to vote against this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5295) to protect students and teachers, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on H.R. 5295.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

It gives me great pleasure to rise in support of H.R. 5295, the Student and Teacher Safety Act of 2006, of which I am a cosponsor. This bill is designed to help schools take actions to keep students and property safe from harm and destruction.

We have an obligation to make the learning environment in which our children attend free from weapons and drugs. By allowing school officials the ability to use their experience and intuition, we are eliminating these threats of violence before they have an opportunity to occur.

Specifically, this bill encourages local school agencies to establish policies that put parents and students on notice that weapons and drugs will not be tolerated within school bounds, and gives power to school officials and full-time teachers to enforce such policies. We all know that the threat of weapons

and drugs in school can create an intimidating and threatening environment making teaching and learning difficult.

The Supreme Court has ruled, and here today we should agree, that ``apart from education, the school has the obligation to protect pupils from mistreatment by other children, and also to protect teachers themselves from violence by the few students whose conduct in recent years has prompted national concern.''

Mr. Speaker, violence in our schools is simply not acceptable. Nothing is more important than the safety and the well-being of our children. Parents should feel secure that when children go to school, they will be completely safe. I say that again, completely safe. This bill provides some assurance that we are doing all that we can as parents, as educators and as leaders of this Nation to protect our children.

If we do not take a stand to keep our schools safe, to keep our children safe, and to allow our teachers to feel that they are in an environment where they are protected, then how can we achieve this goal?

Unless addressed by Congress, public school children will continue to be unnecessarily exposed to unacceptable levels of crime and school violence.

Lastly, Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague, the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Davis), for introducing this important legislation, and I urge my colleagues to join me in support of H.R. 5295, the Student and Teacher Safety Act of 2006. A vote for this bill is a vote in support of school officials and teachers who fight to keep weapons and drugs out of our public schools every day and a vote to allow our children to have a safe learning environment.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Davis).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes at this time to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Boustany).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished chairman of the Education and Workforce Committee, the gentleman from California (Mr. McKeon).

(Mr. McKEON asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fitzpatrick).

Mr. Speaker, we have no additional speakers other than myself to close, so if the gentleman from California would like to close at this time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to close on this bill.

It seems as though there is a long distance between this side of the aisle and the other side of the aisle, because my friend Mr. Miller fails to recognize the statistics that the honorable gentleman from Kentucky mentioned. Regardless of the fact that there are school districts who are attempting to make changes in their disciplinary policies protecting students, the fact is that violence remains a very, very big issue in our schools. It needs to be resolved.

People, like the teachers on the front lines combating this violence and protecting our students, are not necessarily afforded the opportunities to do that. That is what this bill does. I applaud Mr. Davis for bringing it forward.

The bill simply asks, and while my friend Mr. Miller would try to distort what the bill actually does, the bill asks school districts, each and every one of them separately, to develop and implement a policy on school safety. Nowhere in this legislation is language requiring what the policy should look like or how strict or relaxed it should be. The legislation merely allows each and every individual school district to craft unique policies with guidance established by the Supreme Court decision. That Supreme Court decision, and I will quote again, simply says apart from education, the school, and I underline the school, has the obligation to protect pupils from mistreatments by other children and also to protect teachers themselves from violence by the few students whose conduct in recent years has promoted national concern.

Now let's go to the actual language. I don't know whether Mr. Miller has had an opportunity to read the bill, but the bill itself specifically says each local educational agency shall have in effect throughout the jurisdiction of the agency policies that ensure that a search described in subsection (b) is deemed reasonable and permissible. No question about it.

Some people might concern themselves with the fact that this might be

an overextension of personal rights, but the Supreme Court has defined what is permissible. In no way does this bill give permission for school officials to perform mass or strip searches of students. No way.

Also, Mr. Miller, let me assure you that while you can make castigations about this side of the aisle trying to balance the budget, nobody on this side of the aisle has suggested that funding for the implementation of this program is to be deleted. As a matter of fact, we openly support increased funding to implement this policy

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 5295, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 5295, the Student and Teacher Safety Act. This legislation builds upon the past efforts of this Congress to bolster school safety, and I commend Mr. Geoff Davis of Kentucky for leading the charge on this legislation.

Enhancing school safety is not a new priority for this House. Earlier this year, we sent to President Bush legislation that included a proposal of my committee colleague Mr. Porter to provide schools with criminal history records for individuals seeking to work with or around children.

Today we have the opportunity to take another step towards safer classrooms. The Student and Teacher Safety Act simply asks schools to adopt policies that put them in compliance with the legal standard established by the U.S. Supreme Court pertaining to the reasonable nature of student searches. As such, the bill enjoys a tremendous consensus of support, including leading teacher unions and school safety advocates. These groups support the commonsense steps that this bill will take, and I include a letter from the National Education Association for the Record at this point.

National Education Association,

Washington, DC, September 8, 2006.

Representative Geoff Davis,

House of Representatives, Washington, DC.

Dear Representative Davis: On behalf of the National

Education Association's (NEA) 3.2 million members, we would

like to commend you for introducing the Student and Teacher

Safety Act (H.R. 5295), which will help ensure a safe

teaching and learning environment in all public schools. We

thank you and our staff for your willingness to engage in a

constructive dialogue and to make changes to your original

draft based on our suggestions. With these changes, we are

pleased to offer our support for H.R. 5295.

NEA believes that a safe and effective learning climate is

necessary for promoting educational excellence in public

schools. All students and education employees must be safe

from violence, and procedures must be in place to prevent and

eliminate all types of disruption or harassment that might

occur.

H.R. 5295 will help promote a safe school environment by

requiring districts to have in place policies addressing

reasonable student searches. Specifically, required policies

under your bill must allow education employees or school

officials to conduct student searches when acting on

reasonable suspicion based on professional experience and

judgment. We believe that such policies will help ensure that

classrooms, school buildings, school property, and students

remain free from the threat of weapons and other dangerous

materials.

We believe your bill strikes a proper balance between

ensuring the safety of students and educators and protecting

student rights. We thank you for your efforts on this

important issue and we look forward to continuing to work

with you to ensure great public schools for every student.

Sincerely,

Diane Shust,

Director of Government Relations.

Randall Moody,

Manager of Federal Policy and Politics.

Mr. Speaker, this legislation empowers full-time teachers or school officials, when acting on suspicion based on professional experience and judgment, to search students on public school grounds, and allows States and school districts to conduct reasonable searches to ensure that the schools remain free of all weapons, dangerous materials or illegal narcotics.

I cannot imagine anyone that would oppose this kind of legislation based on the fact that we all, working together, want to make schools safer for our students and teachers.

In order for our Nation's students to get the most out of their education, it is imperative that they feel safe inside the classroom. Last week's report of two Wisconsin teens plotting a school shooting spree only served to underscore the need to ensure that our teachers, administrators and parents have the necessary tools to keep the classrooms safe and focused on what they are meant for, learning. Parents should be at ease when sending their children to school. Teachers and administrators should know that we are empowering them with resources to make sure that we are keeping their workplaces safe. And most of all, students deserve to learn in as safe an environment as possible.

I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this important measure to bolster school safety.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today with tremendous pride to support the Student and Teachers Safety Act. Drugs and violence simply do not belong in our schools. Our teachers and children are entitled to a safe learning environment, free from weapons and illicit narcotics.

Time and again at the Columbine High School in Colorado; in Jonesboro, Arkansas; and in my home State, at

Heath High School in Paducah, Kentucky, shocking acts of violence have been planned and unfortunately executed in our schools.

Last week in Green Bay, Wisconsin, the situation turned out differently. Local law enforcement reacting to information gathered by school officials were able to thwart an attack being planned by high school students and save lives.

The National Center for Education statistics found in 2003, the last year for which we have statistics, 17 percent of students in grades 9 through 12 reported having carried a weapon; 9 percent of students reported having been threatened or injured with a weapon, such as a gun, knife, or club, on school property. During the same period, 29 percent of students have been offered drugs on school grounds within the previous 12 months.

My friends, these numbers are simply unacceptable. The presence of drugs or weapons in a classroom is not conducive to a productive learning environment. Metal detectors have become a fact of life in many of our schools. Despite that fact, weapons are still appearing in our classrooms.

When I was a child in school, no one doubted who had control of the classroom. Teachers were clear in their ability to control their learning environment. Today, we have the opportunity to restore some of that clarity.

I am a firm believer in our Constitution and our Bill of Rights, and I take my oath of office to defend those rights very seriously. This legislation is simple. This act does not issue a blank check to anyone to conduct random, unfounded, or mass searches. It does not change the fourth amendment standards on search and seizure. In fact, it is the parents and school officials who are empowered by this legislation. These men and women will work together in individual communities across the Nation to develop school safety policies that suit the unique needs of their teachers and students and are based on the constitutional standards set by the Supreme Court. Nothing more, nothing less.

H.R. 5295 requires local education agencies to have policies in place that adopt a standard articulated by the Supreme Court in New Jersey v. T.L.O. This standard allows teachers and school officials to use their experience and judgments to make decisions that will help control their classrooms and protect the students.

Our schools and classrooms should be safe places, free from drugs and weapons; and safety should not be a luxury. Parents should be confident in the safety of their children at school. Children should be able to focus on their studies without fear; teachers and school officials should be confident in their judgment and ability to control school property.

I am very proud of the work that we have done with the National Education Association to improve the language of H.R. 5295 since its original introduction, and I am even more pleased that the National Education Association has endorsed this legislation as a positive step toward a safer learning environment for teachers and students throughout our schools.

A special thank you is due to Chairman McKeon and his staff for their assistance. I would especially like to recognize the work of three staffers, Joanna Glaze, Taylor Hansen and James Bergeron. I urge all my colleagues to support this simple, commonsense legislation to provide our students and teachers with a safer, more productive learning environment.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to the Student and Teacher Safety Act of 2006, H.R. 5295. Although this bill seeks a noble end, protecting our children and their teachers, it gives me pause because it authorizes school systems to strip away student's constitutional rights.

All children should feel safe at school. All teachers should be secure while carrying out their mission of teaching our children. We all agree on this. However laudable these goals of safety and security may be, they should not be sought at the expense of the rights of our children.

School is not only a place where children learn math, reading, and writing.School is also a place where children learn how to be citizens in a free society. Being a citizen of this country means living free from the fear of unnecessary searches and government harassment. My fear is that when we expose our children to constant violations of their privacy through limitless drug tests and unreasonable searches during their school years, they will grow up to believe that violations of their constitutional rights are the norm in our country. The future generations that we will depend on to defend the Bill of the Rights may no longer know what those rights are. They may be all too willing to accept ever-increasing government intrusion into their private lives. In an age of warrant-less wiretaps and secret surveillance, this is not a risk I am willing to take.

In addition, this bill does not adequately protect the privacy interests of our students. In 1969, the Supreme Court said that children do not leave their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse door. Yet this bill is so vaguely and broadly worded that it potentially opens a ``Pandora's Box'' of 4th Amendment violations in our schools. This bill does not require that school officials actually suspect an individual of wrongdoing before searching them. Rather, it allows for searches if a school official thinks that his or her actions will help the school remain drug free.

I am worried that this bill will lead to instances similar to what happened in Goose Creek, South Carolina in November of 2003. School officials in Goose Creek suspected that a student was dealing drugs in the high school.

They then subjected 150 students to a police raid, and drug dogs going through student's backpacks. The searches occurred despite the fact that the suspected drug dealer was absent from school on that day. Not surprisingly, no drugs were found. Unfortunately, 150 students were humiliated by the school officials that are supposed to guide them on their journey to adulthood.

School safety is a vitally important issue. Children must be able to learn in an environment free from fear and violence. Providing students and teachers with safe schools does not require students to check their civil liberties at the door. The Bill of Rights envisions a balance between individual freedoms and law enforcement. That balance has served our country well for more than two centuries. There is no reason that such a balance cannot be struck in our school system. If we want safe schools we should invest in afterschool and mentoring programs. We should invest in programs that teach children how to resolve conflicts in non-violent ways. We should teach our children that they have privacy rights that follow them wherever they go, including to school. I urge my colleagues to vote against this bill.