School safety at forefront of state leaders as many Charlotte-area students return to class next week

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — Several school districts in the area are headed back to class Monday. 

Dozens of districts are well into the swing of things by now – but students and teachers in the last round of schools to head back before labor day are savoring the final weekend of summer. That includes the more than 140,000 Charlotte-Mecklenburg students. 

It’s common for districts to implement new safety protocols each summer. For example, CMS is now using a new emergency response and communication platform. It was developed by the nonprofit I Love U Guys, and is used by school districts across the country to create a predictable and unified response to any school-based incident.

District officials reported a decrease last year in school-related crime overall, citing a 70 percent drop in guns found on campuses.  

North Carolina legislators are working to make reporting those incidents more uniform across the board. That includes drafting House Bill 605, which requires schools to report the number of threat assessments they do annually and list the actions they take when they come across potential danger. 

“I understood we had a chink in the armor, and that was people on school property no communicating with each other,” said N.C. Rep. John Torbett (R-Gaston). “These teams force that communication, so it better enables you to discern if a child has an issue and to what level that issue rises. 

In addition to CMS, several other counties will start the school year Monday. Union and Anson county to the southeast will head back, as will more northwestern districts of Catawba, Burke and Caldwell counties. 

Legislators are looking to increase funding for school safety systems. How much will be determined once a budget is finalized.