Gov. Brian Kemp plans to give Georgia schools an additional $50 million this year to spend on school security, he announced Monday.
Kemp, speaking at a news conference at the Georgia Capitol on the first day of the 2025 legislative session, said school safety in Georgia will also be a top priority in next year’s budget and proposed legislation this session.
The spending plan — which brings the total grant amount for fiscal year 2025 to almost $69,000 per school — is one of the ways state leaders are attempting to make good on promises to improve safety made after the Apalachee High School shooting in the fall.
“As all of us remember, the horrific tragedy last year put all of these investments to test,” Kemp said about the worst school shooting in Georgia’s history. A 14-year-old student is accused of shooting and killing two students and two teachers at Apalachee High in Barrow County. State leaders have since come out with a number of proposals to improve school safety in the state.
The additional grant funding makes a total of $158 million in school security grants distributed statewide in this fiscal year, Kemp said.
Kemp also intends to fund crisis counseling training for existing school staff, and to allocate nearly $900,000 to improve the ratio of school psychologists. The National Association of School Psychologists recommends one per every 500 students. In Georgia, the ratio is one psychologist per 2,077 students, which is among the worst ratios in the country. Other state leaders have emphasized that school security includes mental health supports.
Kemp was joined by Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and House Speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington at the news conference Monday. Jones said he would prioritize the final passage of “Alyssa’s Law,” which would require schools to have panic buttons. Barrow County schools had purchased crisis alert badges before the September shooting.
Though Alyssa’s Law did not pass in the House of Representatives, Jones said he expects it will be successful in the coming year.
Back in September, Burns endorsed efforts to expand mental health care access, offer incentives for gun safety purchases and toughen penalties against people who make terroristic threats. More recently he suggested using money from speeding cameras around school zones to fund safety measures.
“I’ve made it clear to the House that we leave no stone unturned when it comes to ensuring our students can learn in a safe and secure environment,” Burns said Monday.
The security grants are outside of the state’s education funding formula, which Kemp has proposed fully funding again this year — never a guarantee.
Some of the metro area’s largest school systems, including DeKalb and Gwinnett counties, are asking lawmakers to take it a step further and change the state funding formula to give more money for students living in poverty. Amending the behemoth formula has long been a topic of discussion at the Gold Dome. But this could be the year for modernization, House Education Committee Chairman Chris Erwin said in a panel hosted by the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education last week. He conceded it would be a “steep mountain to climb.”
Kemp also proposed an additional $10.3 million for student transportation, which is often a stressor for school systems. State funding has not kept up with rising transportation costs. In 2021, the state funded roughly a quarter of transportation costs for metro Atlanta school systems.
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