U.S. Senator Ken Salazar

Member: Finance, Agriculture, Energy, Ethics and Aging Committees

 

2300 15th Street, Suite 450 Denver, CO 80202 | 702 Hart Senate Building, Washington, D.C. 20510

 

 

For Immediate Release

February 19, 2007

CONTACT:    Cody Wertz – Comm. Director
303-455-5999


  Sen. Salazar Expands Colorado School Safety Innovation to Nation

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Each day, roughly 160,000 children miss school because they are afraid of a violent incident, 100,000 children take a weapon to school, 14,000 young people are attacked on school property, 6,250 teachers are threatened, and 260 teachers are assaulted.

Against the backdrop of this epidemic of school violence, United States Senator Ken Salazar last week introduced the School Safety Enhancement Act, which will:

  • Help schools establish hotlines or tiplines for reporting potentially dangerous situations (modeled off the “Safe2Tell” program in Colorado);
  • Assist schools in purchasing surveillance cameras and other capital improvements to improve school security; and
  • Require the Departments of Justice and Education to cooperatively develop publish a set of advisory school safety guidelines, to help school districts establish their own.

“My state of Colorado experienced two of our Nation’s worst school shooting tragedies in recent memory, one at Columbine High School in Littleton while I was the Attorney General and one at Platte Canyon High School in Bailey just last year,” said Senator Ken Salazar. “The prevention of school violence is an issue close to my heart and it is one where a small amount of action and planning can go a long way. The School Safety Enhancements Act takes some extremely important steps to help curb school violence and prepare schools for an emergency. I am hopeful Congress will pass this school safety legislation to ensure that our children are protected and secure while they are learning.”

Salazar’s School Safety Enhancement Act would create a three-year, $50 million grant program within the Department of Justice (DOJ) to fund school safety grants to school districts. The grants would pay for up to 80 percent of the cost of certain school safety initiatives, such as establishing school safety tiplines and hotlines such as Safe2Tell, the highly-successful Colorado school safety hotline.

To date, Safe2Tell has received 315 tips from 79 Colorado cities and 39 Colorado Counties, from both rural and inner city areas. These tips have included six about planned school attacks and threats to take the lives of others. Safe2Tell has also had 29 successful interventions for Colorado youth who were threatening suicide or other self-destructive activities.

In the wake of the Columbine High School tragedy in 1999, then-Attorney General Ken Salazar helped develop, in partnership with local law enforcement and others, Colorado’s innovative statewide Safe2Tell violence prevention hotline.

Colorado’s toll-free Safe2Tell hotline operates 24 hours, 7 days a week to give students a way to anonymously provide information about any safety concern, including “gang activity, guns or other weapons, drugs or alcohol, fights, suicide threats, bullying, or sexual crimes,” according to Safe2Tell. Trained operators answer the calls and document the information, all while protecting the callers’ identity, and tips are immediately investigated. Callers can track their tips via Safe2Tell’s website, www.Safe2Tell.org, by a confidential code number, to allow callers to track the progress of their tip.

The School Safety Enhancement Act will be introduced tomorrow by Senator Salazar, along with Senators Boxer (D-CA), Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Schumer (D-NY). To be eligible for school safety grant, school districts would be required to prepare a comprehensive school safety assessment.

# # #