Here are the education issues Georgia lawmakers are considering at the Capitol

School safety

On the first day of the legislative session, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp proposed an extra $50 million in one-time school security grants in the amended fiscal year 2025 budget, adding to existing yearly school security funds. The total would amount to $158.9 million for school safety funds, or $68,760 per school.

During this session, legislators have proposed a slew of bills around a statewide student information database, emergency panic buttons, safe gun storage and more in an effort to prevent future school shootings from occurring.

A few bills propose a statewide network of information on student behavior and potential safety threats shared among law enforcement authorities and schools.

The most sweeping among these bills is House Bill 268, a 58-page bill cosponsored by six House Republicans, including House Speaker Jon Burns. 

The bill proposes a statewide “School and Student Safety Database,” or S3 Database, that would collect behavioral information on students who “may pose a threat” to a school or people within a school. Under the bill, a new Office of Safe Schools in the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security would be in charge of the database, as well as threat assessment, management and coordination. The bill would also require that schools share disciplinary and academic records with another school when a student transfers.

Many of the provisions in the bill stem from concerns over communication among law enforcement agencies and school systems arising from the Apalachee High School shooting. The Jackson County Sheriff’s Office had previously questioned Colt Gray, the 14-year-old suspect in the Apalachee High School shooting, and his father Colin Gray, after the FBI received tips in 2023 related to online school shooting threats.

Some lawmakers and students have expressed concerns around cybersecurity and data privacy risks associated with maintaining a database of student and school information.

HB 268 also requires public school personnel to take youth violence prevention training, includes reimbursement grants for hiring mental health professionals at schools and makes it a felony to make threats against people at or likely to be at a school. Another bill backed by mostly Senate Republicans makes a felony and sets penalties for terroristic death threats against people in a school or the use of a weapon on school property. 

In the Senate, a bill backed by Democrats also proposes a statewide database of safety threats, but one that is managed by the Georgia State Board of Education rather than GEMA/HS, though the bill would authorize the education board to cooperate with GEMA/HS, Georgia Bureau of Investigation and other local school bodies. However, Senate Bill 54 emphasizes that student information should not enter the database until local law enforcement has assessed the threat the student poses and a certificated school social worker has evaluated the student.

Though some Democrats have been supportive of measures that create an information database for the sake of school security, Democrats have also put forward gun safe storage bills as a greater priority for deterring gun violence at schools.

Students at Apalachee High School and family members of the victims have joined both Democrats and Republicans at press conferences introducing school safety and gun storage bills.

A group of mostly Republicans have also proposed that local school systems should be required to carry mobile panic alert systems, like the one used by school personnel during the Apalachee school shooting.

Transgender athletes in women’s sports

The Trump administration’s push to ban the participation of transgender women in women’s athletics has coincided with efforts in the state of Georgia.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Feb. 5 giving federal agencies the power to prohibit trans athletes from participating in girls’ and women’s sports as a way to ensure institutions that receive federal funding abide by the Trump administration’s interpretation of Title IX, which defines “sex” as sex assigned at birth.

Republican Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones joined Trump in Washington for the signing of the executive order. The next day, the Georgia State Senate voted 35 to 17 to pass SB 1, which would similarly require students to participate in K-12 and college sports that align with their assigned sex at birth. Though Republicans have championed this issue, two Democratic senators also cast ballots in favor of SB 1. 

In 2022, the Georgia High School Association voted to require trans athletes to compete in teams that correspond to their assigned sex at birth, but SB 1 would extend that requirement to college athletics too.

House Republicans have filed a similar bill named after activist Riley Gaines, who competed against trans athlete Lia Thomas in the NCAA swimming championships.

Democrats have argued that few trans women compete in women’s athletics and that lawmakers should focus on issues that affect a greater number of Georgians. In response to Republican efforts, Democrats have filed SB 41, which seeks to prevent discrimination in school athletics based on gender and allows students who feel that they have been unfairly denied an athletic opportunity based on their gender or have experienced retaliation for reporting discrimination to bring civil action.

Funding for disadvantaged students

Democrats have brought back proposals for giving more funds to public school systems that have a large number of students “living in poverty.”

The effort would amend the state’s Quality Basic Education formula that funds public education, and school systems can receive extra funding through an applied “weight” to a base amount set by the legislature. The weights apply for certain programs and certain types of students that take programs.

House Bill 245 creates a 1.75 weight for students “living in poverty,” or students whose families are on SNAP or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families benefits, are without stable housing, or are in foster care. Senate Bill 128 creates a grant for school systems from the State Board of Education to invest in services for students living in poverty.

The bills would amount to an extra $2,000 per student and $2 billion in grants for schools, according to the lead sponsors of the bills, Democratic State Rep. Phil Olaleye and Democratic State Sen. Jason Esteves.

Conversations around updating the QBE formula aren’t new. Senate and House Democrats brought similar bills last session, but they failed to pass. This year, Democrats have again spearheaded the effort for extra funding for economically disadvantaged students, though two Republicans are now cosponsors of the House bill.

Literacy and chronic absenteeism

In recent years, Georgia has embarked on an overhaul of its system of teaching reading after Georgia Milestones assessment numbers showed that a low percentage of students showed proficiency in English language arts.

The Georgia legislature passed the Early Literacy Act in 2023 and is shifting to “structured literacy” model of teaching reading, which is based on a body of research called the science of reading and touts systematic word-identification practices. The state will implement its new language arts standards next school year.

To facilitate the state’s transition to structured literacy, a bipartisan group of lawmakers have proposed a bill banning “three-cueing,” which is an older method of teaching reading that calls on students to decipher words based on the meaning of the sentence or its grammatical structure before asking students to use phonetic cues, or sound them out.

Legislators are also putting forward other measures to improve literacy in Georgia. A bill sponsored by House Republicans would require public schools to administer a tiered reading intervention plan for students who are “significantly at risk of not attaining grade level reading proficiency” or who exhibit characteristics of dyslexia. The bill also bans the three-cueing model.

Another bill proposes a “pilot immersive writing program” for students in second grade to fifth grade that would provide $2 million in grants to schools that apply to participate in the program. 

Reading and math achievement levels across the U.S. are still lagging behind pre-pandemic measures, according to a recent report by the Education Recovery Scorecard, and researchers cited a rise in chronic absenteeism as a reason for the slow recovery in academic achievement. Chronic absenteeism refers to the percentage of students who miss at least 10% of the school year.

In Georgia, the current rate is 21.3%, compared to around 12% prior to the pandemic, according to the Georgia Department of Education.

Senate Republicans are looking to address the issue by preventing schools from expelling students only based on absences from school. In addition, their bill recommends mandating attendance review teams at local school systems that have a chronic absenteeism rate of 10% or higher and at individual schools with a rate of 15% or higher.