Florida is spending $528 million on school safety this year. Here is what every other state needs to hear.

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Florida is spending $528 million on school safety and mental health this year.

I want you to sit with that number for a second. $528,983,121. That is not a budget proposal. That is not a campaign promise. That is a signed, funded, active investment in the safety of children going to school in this state right now.

I live in Florida. I have spent eight years here fighting for school safety. And I want to tell you why what is happening in this state matters not just to Floridians, but to every parent, educator, and law enforcement officer in America. Because Florida figured something out that most states have not. And if enough people understand what that is, maybe we can push other states to catch up.

My son Alex was 14 years old when he was murdered in his English class at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on February 14, 2018. He played trombone. He was funny and kind and he should be finishing college right now. Seventeen people were murdered that day. Seventeen families had their lives destroyed. And in the weeks and months that followed, Florida had a choice that every state has after a tragedy like that.

You can hold a press conference, pass a resolution, express your thoughts and prayers, and move on. Or you can actually do something.

Florida did something. And it did not stop.

Within weeks of Parkland, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act was signed into law. It was not perfect. Nothing ever is. But it was real. It created new requirements for school safety plans, established threat assessment teams in every school district, put mental health counselors in schools, created the Guardian Program, required active shooter drills, and required law enforcement to better coordinate with schools. That was one bill. In the eight years since, Florida has passed eight more.

I want to walk you through what is actually in this year's budget because the line items matter. This is not a general fund that gets absorbed into overhead. These are specific programs with specific purposes built by leaders who understand that school safety is not a talking point. It is a commitment.

The Safe Schools Allocation is $290 million. That goes directly to school districts for safety infrastructure, personnel, training, and threat prevention. It is the backbone of the whole system.

The Mental Health Assistance Allocation is $180 million. This one is important and I want to say why. There is sometimes a false choice presented in the school safety debate between security and mental health, as if we have to pick one. Florida rejected that. You fund both. You put trained officers in schools and you put mental health counselors in schools. You harden the building and you take care of the kids inside it. $180 million says Florida understands that.

Then there is Alyssa's Alert, funded at $6.4 million. Alyssa Alhadeff was one of the seventeen murdered at Parkland. She was 14 years old. Her mother Lori, one of my closest partners in this work, fought for years to get a mandatory panic alarm system into every Florida school so that teachers can immediately alert law enforcement during an emergency without having to find a phone or an intercom. That law exists now. That system is funded. Alyssa's name is on it.

There is also $5 million for the Threat Management Portal, $3 million for the School Safety Portal, $845,000 for the Florida Safe Schools Assessment Tool, and $1.5 million for the SESIR system (School Safety Data Portal) that tracks school safety incidents in real time across the state. Every single one of these programs exists because someone decided that school safety was not a line item to cut. It was a commitment to keep.

Now I want to talk about what schools need to do. Because this is not just a problem for parents to solve at home.

I have been to all fifty states talking about school safety. I have sat in school board rooms, police departments, legislative offices, and community centers. I have talked to superintendents who are desperate for resources they do not have. I have talked to law enforcement officers who have never been inside the schools they are supposed to protect. I have talked to parents who do not even know whether their school has a threat assessment team.

Most states are not doing what Florida is doing. Most states are not close. When you look at per-student investment, at the consistency of programming, at the number of laws that have actually been enacted and funded, Florida is really doing more than 90 percent of the country.

And it did not happen by accident. It happened because leaders in this state decided, after the worst day of our lives, that they were going to make this a priority and keep making it one. Every year. Not just the year after the shooting. Every year. We have great leaders in this state who prioritize the safety and security of our children and who are determined to make sure another Parkland does not happen again. I am grateful for every one of them.

I am not telling you this to make you feel bad about where you live. I am telling you this because you deserve to know what is possible. Because your kids deserve what Florida's kids have. The gap between states that fund safety and states that do not is not a policy debate. It is a life and death difference.

Florida did not get here overnight. It got here because after Parkland, enough people refused to accept that nothing could be done. We do not have to accept that. You do not have to accept that. And I will keep fighting until every state gets where Florida is.

Check the free School Safety Dashboard at schoolsafetydashboard.org - real-time data, fully mobile, free for every parent and educator in America.

Florida showed us what is possible when leaders decide school safety is not a talking point. I am going to keep pushing until every state gets there. Every child in this country deserves to go to school and come home safe.

For Alex. And for all of them.

— Max Schachter