A school safety bill introduced in response to the Apalachee High School shooting in September got a major change after advocates warned that it would unfairly criminalize children.
Senate Bill 61, authored by state Sen. Greg Dolezal, a Republican from Forsyth County, was initially written to add both terroristic acts and terroristic threats against a school to the list of charges that would mean a juvenile will automatically be tried as an adult. At Monday’s Senate Judiciary Committee meeting, Dolezal announced that terroristic threats would no longer be included in the bill, although terroristic acts and other charges will.
“We recognize that there is actually a difference between people who actually commit these crimes and minors who are unwisely threatening but perhaps without an intent to ever actually follow through on it,” Dolezal said during the hearing on Monday morning.
The bill is expected to be introduced and voted on Thursday, the last day new legislation can be introduced this session.
In its original form, the bill drew criticism from youth advocates and attorneys like Randee Waldman, director of the Barton Juvenile Defender Clinic at Emory University School of Law.
Waldman, who has defended many juvenile clients, said that most of her terroristic threat cases stem from momentary outbursts where a student acted out of frustration and immaturity.
“The research tells us, and the U.S. Supreme Court has told us, that deterrence does not have the same impact on young people as it has on adults. Young people don’t think about the long-term consequences of their actions,” she said.
Juveniles in Georgia are regularly tried as adults, especially for certain crimes. A 2024 report from The Sentencing Project found that 11% of all people sentenced to over 50 years or life without the possibility of parole in Georgia were under 18 at the time of their offense.
Black kids, like Black adults, bear the burden of biased policing and sentencing practices.
In Georgia, 80% of all people serving life sentences for a crime they committed as a child are Black.
Not much is different in schools, where Black students are disciplined more harshly and more frequently than students of other races. Atlanta’s public schools are 72% Black, but Black students made up 90% of disciplined students in 2024, according to data from the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement.
“When people develop these policies, I want to believe that the intention is to make schools safer. But if we’re going to do that, we should more directly address the issue — creating harsher punishment does not directly address the issue,” said Fatima Brunson, an assistant professor for education at Spelman College.
Instead, Brunson said, lawmakers should work with schools and educators to develop policies that are more student-centered. She suggested that schools make sure that each student is formally connected to a faculty member who can give them mentorship and create a sense of community.
Lola Gee, an advocate for behavioral intervention for kids that need help with emotional regulation, is worried SB 61 could do more harm than good.
“I’m a mother of a little Black boy with special needs, and we know that those children will be disproportionately impacted by this bill,” she said.
Schools need to do more on a day-to-day basis to provide support to children with behavioral problems, she said. If they gave more children behavioral intervention plans, it would help them avoid getting into trouble down the road, she said.
Though the bill no longer includes terroristic threats, it still would expand the list of crimes that mean sending juveniles to adult court.
Under SB 61, aggravated assault and aggravated battery would become charges that automatically send a juvenile’s case to superior court, where they would be tried as an adult. Previously, those charges would only be under superior court jurisdiction if the victim was a police officer.
Also added to the list of charges that would lead to juveniles being charged as adults under SB 61 are criminal conspiracy and criminal attempts. SB 61 would also allow district attorneys to downgrade a case to juvenile court before an indictment. After indictment, only a judge could send the case to juvenile court.
“The juvenile system is built around a rehabilitative ideal,” Waldman said. The adult system does not have the capacity to provide the support and services that students who act out in this way need, she added.
The final section of the bill seeks to address school safety by requiring each public school to annually work with law enforcement to assess the threats on its premises, including unlocked doors, unsecured vestibules, and other vulnerabilities. Law enforcement would then be responsible for creating a safety plan based on the assessment.
According to Dolezal, this and other ideas from the bill came from conversations he had between local sheriffs, judges, district attorneys, and superintendents after the shooting at Apalachee High School.
After the Apalachee shooting, there were over 100 kids arrested across the state for making threats against their school, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
This story has been updated.
