Sponsors (22)
Official title: To amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to reduce losses of life through better school safety standards and responses, and for other purposes.
Introduced December 17, 2025 by Burgess Owens · Last progress December 17, 2025
The bill centralizes data, standards, and tools to improve school emergency preparedness and response—strengthening mapping, training, and federal oversight—while raising costs, privacy and vendor-lock risks, and tensions over federal vs. local control that could divert resources from prevention services.
Students and school staff will get more actionable, evidence-based training and individualized consulting to prevent and respond to school emergencies.
Schools, site owners, and first responders will have interoperable, U.S.-hosted emergency site maps with defined access rules, improving on-site coordination and likely speeding responder actions during incidents.
A National School Safety Data Center, standardized reporting, mandated evaluations, and annual congressional reporting will produce nationwide data and evidence to target prevention resources, improve oversight, and inform which strategies work.
Taxpayers, federal agencies, states, and local school districts may face significant new costs—from expanding Clearinghouse activities to complying with map procurement/hosting and producing master plans—raising fiscal pressure on budgets at all levels.
Students, staff, and families face heightened privacy and data-security risks because the bill increases collection/use of detailed incident data, maps, and surveys and expands DHS access unless strong de-identification and access controls are enforced.
Local school districts and LEAs may experience friction and reduced autonomy as stronger federal oversight and expanded DHS engagement could create mission creep into K–12 operations and disagreements over implementation priorities.
Based on analysis of 6 sections of legislative text.
Strengthens the school safety Clearinghouse, funds tech development/training for panic‑alarm and response tech, sets strict digital map standards, and requires federal mapping strategy and master plan reporting.
Expands the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Clearinghouse on School Safety Evidence-based Practices to add research, testing, training, technical assistance, staffing, and a program to develop and evaluate panic‑alarm and other emergency response technologies for schools. Sets national standards for digital emergency response maps used at federally funded sites, requires a federal procurement/distribution strategy for covered federal sites, and requires recurring federal reporting on statewide "master plans" for school safety planning. Also preserves that the Clearinghouse cannot issue formal regulations, requires definitions for key terms, and tasks the Secretary with timelines for strategy and reporting. The bill focuses on operational authorities, technical standards, training, and reporting rather than on creating new appropriations or regulatory power for the Clearinghouse.