This article originally appeared on wyff4.com. To view the original article, click here.
South Carolina lawmakers are moving toward passing a bill that would require schools to have a mobile panic button system. If passed as is, it would allow each teacher to alert the school in case of an emergency and call for help with just the push of a button.
If this sounds familiar, that’s because Greenville County Schools already has something like this.
Teachers, school staff, and students told our crews last year that the Raptor security system made communication within the school and with law enforcement faster and the school feels safer.
This potential new law, named the Mobile Panic Alert Systems in Public Schools Bill, has been nicknamed Alyssa’s law in other states after a student who died in the Parkland High School shooting.
Her mother, Lori Alhadeff, has made it her mission to use her daughter’s story to save other students’ lives.
“I texted Alyssa. I told her to run and hide, that help was on the way,” Lori said in a Senate subcommittee meeting Wednesday. “But on that day, help did not come quickly enough. She wasn’t alerted fast enough, and students didn’t go into their safety protocols quickly enough. Alyssa and 17 others died that day. That is why the principle of this bill is so simple. Time equals life.”
The bill already passed the statehouse unanimously. Wednesday, it passed the Senate’s education subcommittee with ease.
While no one voted against or spoke out against this bill, the one concern brought up: funding. How will school systems pay for the technology and security requirements needed to carry this out?
While some can rely on their local tax base, others would need help funding the project. That’s something the Senate and House would have to agree on before it goes to the governor’s desk.
