Georgia school threat assessment law

Do Georgia schools need a threat assessment plan?

Yes, for public schools: no later than January 1, 2027, each public school safety plan must include a behavioral threat assessment management plan (often shortened to BTAM). The plan must provide a structured, multidisciplinary process to identify, assess and mitigate potential threats. Each local school system and public school must update its school safety plan to include that plan. The school safety plan duty applies to every public school. School safety plans must also include a strategy for developing a behavioral threat assessment and management process and plan, using guidance from the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency (GEMA/HS).

Does Georgia law require a standing threat assessment team?

The plan law calls for a "structured, multidisciplinary process" but does not use the word "team" or require a standing team. As introduced, HB 268 proposed a threat management team for each local school system; that team mandate is not in the enacted text. State guidance from GEMA/HS recommends that schools keep a dedicated, multidisciplinary behavioral threat assessment team that includes school administration, law enforcement, counselors and mental health partners. GEMA/HS Homeland Security Coordinators can help form a school's team and may serve on it, and schools may ask GEMA/HS for technical help with their protocols.

Who must be involved, and what starts an assessment?

The plan law names no required members or disciplines beyond calling the process "multidisciplinary". It lists no events or behaviors that trigger an assessment; it requires a process "to identify, assess, and mitigate potential threats". GEMA/HS guidance says schools should keep a systematic process to identify, inquire about, assess and manage concerning situations. Under that guidance, once a threat is assessed, a management or intervention plan is developed to reduce the risk.

Is there a state model?

In September 2026, GEMA/HS began rolling out a Behavioral Threat Assessment and Management model for public and private K-12 schools. It is agency guidance, not a rule. GEMA/HS describes the model as practical guidance schools use to build their own processes.

Who approves the plan?

Behavioral threat assessment management plans must be submitted to the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities (DBHDD) for approval. Public school safety plans must be submitted for approval to the local emergency management agency, local law enforcement, GEMA/HS and DBHDD.

What training and support does the state give?

School safety plans must cover training administrators, teachers and support staff, including school resource officers, security officers, secretaries, custodians and bus drivers, on school threat assessment, among other topics. GEMA/HS must work with DBHDD to give training and technical help on building and carrying out these plans to the Department of Education, regional educational service agencies, local school systems and other public schools. GEMA/HS must work with DBHDD to give the same or similar training and technical help to private schools. DBHDD must give technical help to the Department of Education, regional agencies, and all local school systems and other public schools, including models of service for students' behavioral health needs. GEMA/HS provides behavioral threat assessment training for schools, and its threat assessment teams provide case management help and consultation.

Do private schools have to do this?

Private school safety plans may be prepared with input from students, parents, teachers and others; the text sets no threat assessment plan mandate for private schools.

How do reports of threats reach schools?

By July 1, 2026, each local board of education or public school governing body must run an anonymous reporting program, its own or a contracted provider's. That duty does not apply to a school system or public school that, as of July 1, 2025, already ran a program substantially meeting the law's minimum requirements. The anonymous reporting program must promptly forward reports to the right school based team. It must require and certify training of school based teams in each school to receive notice of reports about the school, a student or school staff.

What happens after a threat is verified?

Subject to state funding, GEMA/HS must set up a secure statewide alert system for public schools to report and monitor safety threats made on or affecting a school campus. No student's name may go into that system until local law enforcement has investigated and verified the threat, and a certificated school social worker (if the school system employs any) has evaluated the student. When a student is added to the system, the local school system must give the student's parents or guardians recommendations for counseling or other services.

What about records?

The plan law itself sets no record-keeping, confidentiality or transfer rule for threat assessment records. The "critical records" that go with a transferring student are kept current for at least the most recent 12 months of enrollment. They are the transcript, attendance, discipline records, certain delinquency rulings, IEP or 504 plans and psychological evaluations; the definition does not name threat assessment records. SB 431 (2026) revised other parts of the records-transfer law but not that definition. SB 431 also changed the record-release deadlines in § 20-2-670(f) to count school business days. Under the records-transfer law, the purposes of a case management consultation include deciding whether a student needs services, such as referrals for special education or behavioral health services.

Is there funding?

Subject to state funding, the State Board of Education must give local school systems grants that repay the starting salaries and benefits of qualified student advocacy specialists. Those grants depend on the school system following the school safety plan law. For FY 2026, the House proposed $24,935,238 for GEMA/HS to build a statewide school safety database and to train local behavioral threat assessment management teams; the final amount was $0. The FY 2027 budget has no behavioral threat assessment line in School Security Grants; it lets schools use existing funds ($6,963,875) to engage part-time or full-time student advocacy specialists.

When did the law take effect, and what bills followed?

HB 268 was signed by the Governor on April 28, 2025, as Act 17, and took effect the same day. HB 550, which would have required Promise Scholarship schools to prepare school safety plans meeting the public-school rules, did not pass. SB 54, which would have created a statewide database on threats to school safety, did not pass. SB 61, on superior court jurisdiction over certain juvenile offenses, did not pass. SB 179 (Act 625 of 2026) has a caption about student records transfer, but its enacted text does not amend the records-transfer law or any school safety law.