Senate poised to pass amended post-FSU shooting package and send to the House • Florida Phoenix

Sen. Don Gaetz filed an amendment to his bill seeking to address campus security concerns following a shooting on the Florida State University campus last year, likely sending it back to the House.

HB 757 was scheduled for a Senate vote Tuesday, but Gaetz, the bill’s sponsor, a Republican from Crestview, said conversations are continuing with the House, requiring temporary postponement in the last week of the session.

“We still have to have one more conversation with the House. We will pass this bill, but we’ve got a few little tweaks that we need to work out between the House and the Senate. There is no problem with the bill, there’s just the need to get it done,” Gaetz told the Phoenix within minutes of the amendment’s filing.

The new language is unrelated to higher education campuses; it instead addresses private school and preschool security.

The original bill added Roman Catholic schools to the section of state law that provides security to Jewish day schools.

The amendment spreads the scope to include “full time religious schools and preschools” that have received credible threats as eligible for state support such as security cameras, fencing, and other security services. 

The bill

The more contentious part of the bill would allow professors and other people appointed by a university president to carry weapons on campus. 

Democrats opposed the bill.

Post-FSU shooting package clears House, floor-ready in Senate

The measure would extend Florida’s School Guardian Program to public colleges and universities, expanding the program lawmakers created for K-12 schools following the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas Shooting in Parkland, in which 17 people were killed.

The Guardian program allows employees and faculty members who undergo training to carry guns on campus. The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission concluded the “best way” to combat campus violence is “to ensure highly trained personnel are in place to respond immediately in the event of a school shooting.”

The bill requires universities to conduct threat assessments and create threat-management teams. It directs training for faculty to identify and respond to behavioral mental health warning signs and to enhance communication about dual-enrolled students’ discipline records between K-12 schools and colleges.