LEILA FADEL, HOST:
As teachers at Georgia's Apalachee High School prepare to start teaching again on Monday, they're also getting ready to lobby state leaders. Not for gun control - they know that won't get much traction in their conservative state. Instead, they're guiding the conversation toward goals they think they can achieve. Jim Burress from WABE in Atlanta reports.
JIM BURRESS, BYLINE: In the hours following the Apalachee High School shooting, law enforcement praised teachers and the school for being prepared and acting quickly.
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CHRIS HOSEY: The protocols in this school and this system activated today prevented this from being a much larger tragedy than what we had here today.
BURRESS: That's Chris Hosey, director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. One of those protocols, an ID badge for teachers equipped with a panic button, was brand-new to the school, says Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith.
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JUD SMITH: And Centegix alarms us and alerts the law enforcement office after buttons are pressed on an ID, and it alerts us that there is an active situation at the school for whatever reason. And that was pressed. And we've had that about a week now.
BURRESS: Money for the system came partially from a nearly $50,000 allotment Georgia lawmakers earmarked this year for each of the state's public schools. Craig Harper is the executive director of PAGE, the Professional Association of Georgia Educators. It's the state's largest teacher lobby. To keep classrooms safe, he says the legislature should continue that safety allotment. But it has to do more, he says, because even the best systems aren't 100%.
CRAIG HARPER: Somebody that's trusted to be in your community that has the will and the desire, unfortunately, often can circumvent those safety measures. And that's why it is so important that we do something in advance.
BURRESS: That something, he says, is more.
HARPER: More school counselors, psychologists, social workers, behavioral specialists to be available to schools.
BURRESS: That's part of the solution. The other, he says...
HARPER: Work on some level of improved communication.
BURRESS: In this case, the FBI had previously identified the 14-year-old suspect, Colt Gray, for making threats online. Ultimately, they found no probable cause to arrest him. He lived in another county then, and it's unclear if any of the information followed Gray to Apalachee High School. Harper says PAGE will lobby for ways to make sure that doesn't happen again.
HARPER: That we have the means to make sure that the school administration and those that work most closely with a student who may have had some interaction with law enforcement - that that's known.
BURRESS: Georgia's Republican House speaker says he is open to teachers' suggestions and promised they will look at, quote, "every reasonable idea." He also promised to protect the rights of citizens to protect themselves, priming teachers to understand that any effort to tighten Georgia's gun laws would even now be a nonstarter.
For NPR News, I'm Jim Burress in Atlanta.
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