Sponsors (25)
Introduced February 13, 2025 by Mario Diaz-Balart · Last progress February 13, 2025
The bill funds and expands evidence-based threat assessment and expert support to help prevent targeted school violence and reduce juvenile arrests, while imposing costs and raising significant privacy, due-process, and local-control concerns that must be managed.
Students and school staff nationwide gain access to evidence-based threat-assessment tools and training that help identify concerning behavior early and reduce the risk of targeted school violence.
Local and state officials, school leaders, and law enforcement can receive expert consultation on complex threat cases, improving coordinated responses and case management.
K–12 students could face fewer arrests and be diverted from the criminal justice system when behavioral threat assessment is used instead of punitive responses.
Students and families may face heightened privacy and data-sharing risks because behavioral and mental-health information about students could be shared more widely with a federal center and local partners.
Students could be subject to disciplinary or criminal consequences if threat-assessment protocols are misapplied or lead to increased law-enforcement involvement, raising due-process and civil‑liberties concerns.
Schools and local agencies will need to devote staff time and other resources to implement threat-assessment protocols, imposing operational costs on districts and municipalities.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Establishes a Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center to research, train, and coordinate targeted-violence prevention, with $10M/year authorized for FY2026–2030.
Creates a new National Threat Assessment Center inside the U.S. Secret Service, funded at $10 million per year for FY2026–FY2030, to research, train, consult, and share information aimed at preventing targeted violence, with a particular focus on preventing school attacks. The Center must staff specialists (including child development and school threat assessment experts), develop an interactive website and a State-by-State training plan within one year, and report to Congress on implementation within two years. Funding cannot be used for firearms training and the authorization expires September 30, 2030.