Nevada school threat assessment law

Does Nevada require school teams that respond to threats?

The board of trustees of each school district, or the governing body of each charter school, must take the team steps listed in NRS 388.14553. It must appoint a team of at least three staff members for each public school in the district, or for the charter school. The team must be notified when the state support center receives certain reports or notices. One trigger is a SafeVoice report of dangerous, violent or unlawful activity, done or threatened, on school property, at a school activity, on a school bus or by an enrolled student. Another is a Handle with Care notice that a student was exposed to a traumatic event. The team section was added in 2017 and has not been amended since 2019.

Who serves on the team?

The team must include a school counselor, psychologist, social worker or similar person if the school employs one full time, plus a school administrator. The team may include a person the school appointed to the committee that reviews its emergency operations plan. The team may let another person serve temporarily when a member is unavailable.

What must the team do after a report?

When notified, a team member must take appropriate action according to the training received. A State Board of Education rule repeats that the team must take appropriate action to respond to a forwarded incident or threat. The team-response provision, NRS 388.14553(2), requires only that a team member take "appropriate action" per training; it sets no duty to notify parents, contact police or write an intervention or safety plan. The State Board rule, NAC 388.924(2), likewise sets none. The team and each member are immune from civil liability for acts or omissions in carrying out these duties.

What training is required?

The Director of the Office for a Safe and Respectful Learning Environment must train each team member to respond to support-center reports, including reports of threats. Support-center staff must be trained to follow up on each report and judge whether it is valid and how severe any threat is.

How does threat assessment fit into emergency plans?

The Department of Education's model plan must include a procedure for selecting an assessment tool to help respond to a threat against the school by a student or students. Each district and charter school emergency operations plan must include the procedures in the model plan. Each private school's emergency operations plan must also include them.

What about records and confidentiality?

Information SafeVoice receives about dangerous, violent or unlawful activity, or threats of it, is confidential. SafeVoice must promptly forward reports to public safety agencies, the Department, school administrators and the school teams. Public safety agencies may access a student's personally identifiable information in order to respond to a reported activity or threat. Information reported to SafeVoice is subject to state and federal privacy laws for student and health information. Anyone who receives forwarded SafeVoice information must keep it confidential.

Does anything go to the state?

The support center must have a standard way to track what happened with each report and notice. Every year by July 1, the Director must send the Legislature's Joint Interim Standing Committee on Education a summary of SafeVoice report information.

Does the state help or pay for it?

The Department's Office for a Safe and Respectful Learning Environment keeps a threat assessment page that links national threat assessment guidance, and cites a federal STOP Act grant from the U.S. Department of Justice. The Department received a federal FY2022 STOP School Violence award to support and build out behavioral threat assessment teams in districts across the state. That award totaled $1,985,347 and ran from October 1, 2022 to March 31, 2026, so it has ended.

What recent bills matter?

A 2019 bill, SB 318, would have set duties for a "threat assessment team" at each public school. It died after its committee hearing. For the 2027 session, starting February 1, 2027, the Joint Interim Standing Committee on Education requested a bill draft, BDR 34-447, titled only "Revises provisions relating to school safety." No bill text exists yet.