For close to 10 years AFSA has been speaking up for a more comprehensive school safety program at the federal level. Our union had reached out to Congress, the White House and the Department of Education with a host of ideas and recommendations. Unfortunately, nothing has happened as lawmakers turn away.

Today in Washington the gun issue is heating up as we head into the start of a new school year and two mass shootings in a single day.

Kimberly Hefling, senior education writer at Politico, reports, "As schools across America open for the school year, the mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, have brought school safety back into the spotlight. While the rampages didn’t occur on school grounds, children were killed in Texas while back-to-school shopping, and an Associated Press report indicated the Dayton shooter once was suspended for compiling a 'hit list' and a 'rape list'—again raising questions about how schools and local authorities should respond to such incidents."

She added, "The renewed focus comes less than two weeks after parents who lost children in last year’s Parkland, Fla., school shooting told a congressional panel that complacency in Washington and elsewhere could lead to more school shootings. They called for a more robust federal role in prodding schools, districts and states to make schools safer."

AFSA recently stood up for a new bill introduced in the House modeled after a New Jersey law. Our union backed  "Alyssa’s Law” in the Garden State—at the federal level, it would require silent panic alarms in all public schools to notify local authorities of an active shooter.

Read her whole story here.