week fights this week, we're featuring american history tv programs as a preview of what's available every weekend on cspan3. tonight historians talk about alexander hamilton's military career and his relationship with george washington. the dye mansion in wayne, new jersey. the site of washington's 1780 headquarters hosted this event. watch tonight at 8:00 eastern on cspan3. enjoy american history this week and every weekend on cspan3. . week nights we're showcasing what's available every weekend on cspan2. tonight the theme is world politics. they discuss modern founding fathers. russian analysis at the cia talks about the downward spiral between the relations between u.s. and russia and where it may

lead. a journalist weighed in on the challenges that arab and middle eastern female journalists face while reporting on stories in their countries. watch tonight at 8:30 eastern on cspan2 and enjoy book tv this week and every weekend on cspan2. . next, a hearing on school safety and gun violence. a house subcommittee and security officials. the parent of a skunt stild in the parkland, florida high school student and lauren hogg co-founder of march for our lives. this is an hour and 50 minutes. > . >> the subcommittee is engaging the community's respective on

school security. good morning and thank you to everyone who is here today. the sub committee is meeting to discuss perspectives on school safety and how the federal government can better support local stake holders in making our children safer. i want to thank the witnesses for participating in today's hearing. first we have miss lauren hogg and mr. max schacter testimonies are ones the marine public needs to hear and ones that members of congress should take to heart as we go about our work. a special thank you to both for sharing your experience with us. the chair would like to acknowledge congressman deutsche who does not sit on this committee but who represents parkland, florida, has been a champion for measures to improve

school safety. i ask consent to any lou congressman deutsche to sit and question witnesses at today's hearing. without objection it is so ordered. i'm glad this hearing can build upon the subcommittee safety hearing they held last year in new jersey. the 2019, 2020 school year is well under way and our kids are at risk from violence every day. as a parent of triplets, all too often i watched the news and i am terrified by what i have seen here. tragically, school violence has taken the lives of too many american children and educators. now, 20 years since columbine high school massacre, which left 13 victims dead, our children are still incredibly vulnerable while attending school. since columbine and even before,

our nation has been rocked by tragic siegle of school shooting shootings. the 2012 sandy hook shooting left a staggering 20 children and six adults dead. yet, congress felt short of passing legislation to combat gun violence in schools. in 2018, there were 24 shootings in k through 12 schools around the country, including this shooting at parkry stoneman douglas high school in parkland, florida, that left 14 children and three teachers dead and shootings at santa fe high school in santa fe, texas, have claimed ten victims. the threat to our students continues. during the first half of 2019, there were 22 school shootings. just last week a teenager was arrested in washington state for

planning to attack the schools on the 21st anniversary of columbine. still, the response from the trump administration and republican-controlled senate has been wholly inadequate. after parkland, congress passed the stop school violenceing a to provide funds for schools looking to improve their safety and infrastructure. however, it is important to remember that school infrastructure is only one part of the solution to keep our children safe. more must be done. in 2018, 113 people were killed or injured in school shootings in the u.s. in the same year, at least 1,200 children were killed by gun violence around the country. gun violence must be addressed both inside and outside of schools to really improve the safety of children in america.

we cannot truly improve safety for children until we address these threats regardless of where they happen. >> that is why the democratically controlled house has passed or removed multiple peaces of legislation aimed at making our children and our country safer, including universal background checks and grants for states who use red flag laws. additionally, i am proud that on april 1st, 2019, the house passed my bill, the class act. which would establish a council within dhs to ensure the department coordinates its safety activity. i hope the senate will finally act on these measures as the american public awaits a meaningful congressional response. like the senate, the trump administration has failed to consider serious solutions to address school safety. last year the administration's

federal commission on school safety published a report that included no new proposals for federal policy or funding to make shschools safer. instead, it promoted arming school personnel. a policy that both students and educators groups oppose. perhaps the only positive outcome from the commission's work was the decision to establish a federal safety clearinghouse, which the department of homeland security is leading along with the departments of education justice, and health and human services. this committee will be following the role out of the clearinghouse later this year. i'm interested to hear from the witnesses how such a tool might be useful to them in their work to improve school safety. additionally, yesterday, the

administration published a new planning guide to help school districts develop and maintain and customize emergency plans while such guidance may 'useful for districts, it does not address the root problems leading to violence in schools, nor does it provide school districts that are stretched thin, new resources to fill your school safety needs. our children are experiencing a new normal. and one that troubles me. act or shooter drills are the new normal in schools. while i recognize the importance of them, i am saddened that our country has come to a place where they are necessary. we must do more to ensure that school violence and shootings are a thing of the past and our kids feel safe when learning. we must do more to protect the

next generations. this country communities like the ones i served and our kids are counting on us. citizens from across the country are speaking loudly about the knead for progress on this subject matter and we must do our best to respond. with that, now i recognize the ranking member of the subcommittee. the gentleman from new york, mr. king, for an opening statement. >> thank you, mr. chairman. at the outset i want to commend congressman joyce on his dedication ever since the report before and ever since the tragedy in this districts. i commend you for that i have a fair statement. i was going to introduce this into the record. this is a vital issue. i would hear the witness' own testimony for the record.

with that, now i will recognize the chairman of the committee. she not here yet. other members of the subcommittee remind under the committee rules, opening statements may be submitted for the record. okay. i want to welcome our panel of witnesses. our first witness who may be the youngest wherens to appear before this subcommittee is lauren hogg, co-founder of march for our lives and a survivor of the school shooting at marjory stoneman douglas high school in parkland, florida. although, she may be young, miss hogg is undoubtedly and unfortunately an expert on this topic. aim thankful she is here testifying for her first congressional hearing to share

her experiences. next, we have mr. jared mayfield, the director of new jersey office of homeland security and preparedness, mr. maples has appeared before this subcommittee numerous times and i thank him for coming back. next, we have miss kathy martinez prattner, who is the director of texas school safety center, which is a part of the texas state university and has been focused on improving school safety if texas for the past 20 years. lastly, we have mr. max shot sh sh inshathner. he founded it after losing his son in parkland, florida. again thank you for being here today. without objection. the witness' full statements will be inserted into the record. i now ask each witness to summarize his or her statements

for five minutes, beginning with miss hogg. chairman payne, chairman thompson, ranking member king, rank member rogers and members of the subcommittee, thank you all for allowing me the opportunity to give a student's perspective on school security. my name is lauren hogg and i'm a co-founder of march for our lives as you just heard, a junior in high school and simply a concerned student who just wants to survive high school, both metaphorically and literally. i hope that this testimony aids in your efforts to protect all students from owl zip codes and all races from going through myself and my classmates have in the wake of a school shooting. i want to preface my shooting by saying that although i am honored to be here today i would not be here if not for the horrendous ehave ents that took place on february 14th, 2018 at my high school, marjory stoneman

douglas. 34 of my classmate, my friends and my teachers and coaches were injured. 17 of them fatally shot with an ar-15 in our hallways. additional liss, although i am here today using my own experience of the militarization of schools, i'm here not to ask for your sympathy. i'm here to ask for your consideration and your action. i was born after columbine and i was 9-years-old when sandy hook occurred. so for most of my life i have been force fed the importance of school security. i still remember the first week back-to-school after the sandy hook shooting took place. i was in 4th grade. i remember spending the first hour of school watching my teacher's shoes on the rainbow carpet as she tried to no avail what a code red was to a room of rowdy 4th graders. as lectureing the new security measures was, i never thought twice about them until four

years later when my friend alena posed a question about why we were having the drills in the first place. in 8th grade, alena petty sat in front of me in our american history class. to be honest, we never talked about school security in the context of preventing mass shootings until one day when our friend austin returned to school after surviving the ft. lauderdale shooting that previous week. together our little friend group contemplated the effectiveness of our school safety procedures while standing in an ad giant corner of our classroom every three months. nearly a year later, the three of us, as nervous freshmen on valentines day, when once again we went through the code red drill. the only difference is this time only two of us made it home. alena was 14-years-old when she was murdered. the week after valentine's day was full of many things, it was full of tear, full of funerals. full of much talk around school security.

i'll never forget the first morning back at school. when we first arrived to the walkway into our campus, we were welcomed back by what seemed like every armed security officer in the whole county. it was truly a sea of black and blue uniforms. they thought they were making us feel sach. for that i am eternally grateful. but the sight of another man holding a fun was enough to make us sick. our school, which once was considered a safe haven of learning by many of us was turned into a place of imprisonment. additionally, much like our national incarceration system, our school when flooded with resource officers that ironically were considered safety precautions became a place where my black and brown classmates were disproportionately targeted at nearly the le times the rate of our white students. simply put, stools are overmilitarized made to seem like prisons, the idea that violence is something to be expected at school. >> that is no mindset for any

child to learn in f. following the tragedy on my high school, numerous individuals, including the secretary of education, look to increase the presence of firearms in schools. i as an individual and as a representative of march for our lives strongly oppose the notion that arming teachers will make our schools safer. there is a fine line between proper security and militarization. as you examine this fine line i urge you to understand those most affected. students. having me here is a first step. students must continue to be consulted. as you examine that line, i urge you to consider non-invasive proactive measures, you need to invest in mental health resource, and trained mental health professionals rather than relying solely on active -- to those to suggest a solution is to hire more resource officers, let me remind you, that the

harmed officers, sro did nothing as 17 of my classmates and teachers were murdered. the sro has been fast charged for child neglect. it was our unarmed football coach who provoked our my classmates and lost his life in the process. furthermore, school safety cannot be addressed fully without addressing this epidemic. given this i encourage you to look into march for our lives a peace plan for a safer america. instead of promoting certain punitive safety measures that i would describe as putting a band aid on a student's bullet wounds, i ask of you to think what is actually beneficial to us students. i hope with all of my being that gun violence prevention legislation passed so we won't have to be having 16-year-olds speaking at hearings on school safety. altogether when it comes to school security, i won't have to

hear students claim they were born after marjorie douglas and grew up where they were force fed school security until they went through a mass shooting of their own. us students are tired of being tired. our future, the future of this country is at stake. the future of this country's safety is now in your hands. thank you. >> thank you for your testimony. i now recognize mr. maples to summarize his statement for five minutes. >> chairman payne, ranking member king, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. it is an honor to speak with you and share the work my office is doing to keep the visitors to new jersey safe, especially with regard to educational institutions. the new jersey office of homeland security and preparedness is tasked with counter terrorism resiliency and cyber security across all levels of government, non-profit organizations and the private

sector. we are charged with bolstering new jersey's resources for critical infrastructure and training and federal grants management. attacks against children and staff and what should be the safe haven of education is perhaps the most jarring incident we face. incidents at schools across the country, serve as stark reminders for those committing acts of violence, for example, law enforcement in new jersey with the assistance in delaware, pre send a shooting in june when we possessed a man at an elementary school in westfield, new jersey. the safety of our children and those charged with our care are paramount. we must do all that is in es to provide students and staff with a sense of comfort and security in their learning environments and parents and guardians deserve the peace of mind that their children will return to them at the end of the day. for that reason, we are combining our resources to ensure the protection of our children. my office has worked to protect

our students would not be possible without the strong partnerships we have with local, state and federal agencies. we are proud of the collaborative progress we continue to make as a state and strengthen security throughout all our institutions, including in education. however, we recognize that our work is never complete and continual improvement is the only way to succeed at protecting new jersey and the country. while we provide details on our ongoing efforts, please be mindful we will always continued to prevent incidents from occurring in the first place. ofocus on prevention is key to avoid the need to employ response tactics. it is our goal to be first presenters as well as first responders and make certain our communities embrace a culture of preparedness to invest equally in both practices. heightened awareness from citizens in law enforcement, combined with a directive that calls for local law enforcement agencies who receive tips about suspicious activity to

immediately notify my office watch unit, led to an unprecedented increase in school-related reports to the nj sars system. additionally our office along with the fbi neuralgic field office created high level thresholds and notification protocol to ensure that all threat to life leads particularly ones that involve schools are immediately actioned to the appropriate municipal county state and federal law enforcement entities, which allows for a more standardized analysis and expeditious accident to mitigate threats. we will continue to prioritize suspicious activity as well as ensure there is a clear path for reporting and addressing issues before an incident can occur through a whole of government approach. we will expand measures such as training school personal, administrators, faculty, custodians and bus drivers and the community as a whole on how to recognize and report suspicious activity. my agency also collaborated to

provide in person training for school safety specialists and distribute more than 18,000 plead control kits through school districts throughout new jersey. the unannounced shooter drills gauge the effectiveness and actions of students, faculty and staff in an environment that is controlled but realistic. we also continue to conduct large shooter exercises for k through 12 schools, ensuring that everyone know what actions to take if they face emergency situation. with that in mind, new jersey colleges and universities participate in a quarterly mass gathering working group that is aimed at identifying and addressing those common as a result customerabilities and fill any gaps at locations where students gather throughout the state. we created a school subcommittee preparedness task force which i share to coordinate best practices and relevant stake holders and agree with national priorities and local leads, lastly, my office and the tuj state police in coordination

with county and local partners, conduct physical security assessments in school as well as provide training to local law enforcement agencies to conduct assessments across the state. one of the biggest safety and security challenges facing many educational institutions throughout new jersey is funding. legislation introduced by chairman payne hr-6920 would provide dedicated funding to at least $90 million every year ear marked strictly for school security. this funding would greatly assist schools throughout the country, including new jersey, adding resources that would enable schools to meet the very goals we have set out in the areas of prevention and response. in conclusion, efforts such as the mass gathering community outreach initiatives and the countless trainings and exercises our office conduct each year highlights we will do all that is necessary to ensure the safety and security of the residents and visitors of yuj, protecting them from terrorist threats to our public space.

we remain dedicated to further collaborating with our partners and to work towards addressing threats with a focus on prevention. chairman payne, ranking member king and dweshd members of the sub-- distinguished members of the subcommittee, i look forward to your questions and yield back to the chairman. >> thank you for your testimony, sir. i now recognize miss martinez prather to summarize her statements for five minutes. >> chairman payne, ranking member king and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today on the topic of school safety and for your leadership and making school safety a priority and a critical part of the educational agenda for all of our schools across the country. i'm the director of the texas school safety center at texas state university and i'm here to discuss the efforts of the center to support schools in effectively carrying out school safety mandates and best practices in texas. the importance of efforts in developing a comprehensive approach to school safety and the impact that community

violence also have in our schools. as you are aware, every day our schools face challenges and have the potential to impede the learning process for our students. these challenges can range from human cause of acts of violence to natural zurs to more frequently the issues our schools deal with every single day. the tragic events etc. in santa fe, texas and florida impacted our nation's schools, continue to re'mind us we have a lot of work to do. we need to continue to work and collaborate to assure our students have a safe place to learn and thrive. the texas school safety center was created following the columbine school shooting. the centers passed in the education code and the governor's homeland security strategic plan to serve as the dissemination of school safety information, including training, research and technical assistance for all k-12 school districts and community colleges across the state. the senator has a board of

principal, superintendents, school board members, law enforcement and parents. all who provide a diverse perspective to inform the work that we do. texas has approximately 1025 school districts. >> that includes over 9,000 individual campuses, 700 charter schools and 50 community colleges all serving over 5.3 million students. texas schools are charged with several school safety mandates. some of those include the adoption and implement axe of a multi-hazards emergency plan providing for employee training in responding to emergency. conducting drills and exercises to prepare students and employees and substitute teachers for responding to an emergency conduct an audit of each of their facilities every three years and establishing a school safety committee this last texas legislative session passed significant safety mandates to further enhance the posture of safety in our texas

schools. those mandates i will highlight. school districts charter schools and community colleges must submit their multi-hazard operation emergency plans now for review and verification to the school safety center with the opportunity of the center to provide feedback and the school corrective action. each school district also must now establish a behavioral threat assessment team to serve each campus of the district. and then a licensed architect will be a school safety board member to form and prioritize a positive and safe learning environment. we have to adopt facility standards for schools that provide for a safe and secure learning environment. on may 18, 2018, santa fe high school was the target of a senseless attack taking the lives of ten people. eight students and two teachers. while the high school and school district as well as community continue to recover from this tragic event, the state of texas

also continues to make school safety a priority. the center knows that schools face many threats, hazards and vulnerabilities. although an active attack is rare, the impact is no doubt catastrophic. that's why we take a comprehensive approach to school safety. we provide training, develop tools and resources for schools on how to prevent and/or mitigate as well as respond to and recover from any type of threat or hazard that could arise. school architecture and design is one of those key mitigation strategies. to be clear, this is not about installing cameras and metal detectors, although that may be appropriate for some schools. this is about designing schools to be learning spaces first. ones that contain minimally invasive but effective security practices. this ensures whether a building is new or existing, it's physical features do not impact teachers, students or the community at large. the center also stresses to schools the importance of

prevention efforts in the overall comprehensive approach to school safety. as i mentioned earlier, texas now requires school districts to have behavioral threat assessment teams and responding to an active shooter event or knowing what to do if an intruder enters the building are skills that students, teachers and administrators unfortunately need to practice and perfect. however, we know that educators are most interested in being preventative and reactive, npro reactive. we want to know what we could have done to have this prevented. research has shown that these events can be prevented because the acts are typically plan in advance, the actors tell others about their violent plans and the acts are often carried out because there's a level of desperation or they view that violence is the only option left to solve problems. behavioral threat assessment provides a proactive

evidence-based approach for identifying individuals who may pose a threat themselves or others, intervening with appropriate resources and improving the safety and well-being of the individual of concern, situation and the school. the goal of threat assessment is not to punish the child, it's not intended to be an adversarial process, but to connect them with the appropriate interventions they need so a threat can be averted. lastly, i want to bring attention to the impact that community violence has on schools. most recently on august 3rd, 2019, a gunman in el paso, texas, entered a walmart and took the lives of 22 people, including a student from a nearby school district. weeks later on august 31st, a gunman senselessly killed seven people in the midland-odessa community, including a student from a nearby school district. although these were not school shootings, they had a significant impact on the school districts in those communities.

as mentioned, two of those individuals killed were students and many others either friends or family members and in some way connected to the school district. in the aftermath of these acts of violence, many of the school districts in these communities were provided resources to assist with counseling for students, staff and parents, which in some districts still continues today. i want to finally communicate school safety is a shared responsibility that involves school boards, superintendents, principals, teachers, mental health professionals, law enforcement, architects, state agencies and organizations, parents, students and policy makers. by ensuring that our schools are safe and healthy learning environments, we give our children the opportunity to excel academically, emotionally and socially. again, thank you for the opportunity to speak today and i look forward to answering any questions you may have. >> thank you for your testimony. and now i recognize mr.

schachter to summarize his statement for five minutes. >> my name is max schachter. my son, alex, was one of 17 people that were brutally murdered at marjory stoneman douglas high school last year. after i buried my son, my priority was to make sure that my other three children were safe in their schools. i have spent the past year advocating for national school safety best practices that can be recognized at the federal level and housed a school safety website and made available to all schools. my goal is to make it as easy as possible for schools to be as safe as possible. i'm pleased to see the president's federal commission on school safety report recommend development of this clearing house and the department of homeland security along with other federal agencies have been working extremely hard to implement this recommendation. i recently reviewed a demonstration of the dhs new

school safety clearinghouse website. it's schoolsafety.gov, and i was extremely impressed as well. i hope once the website is launched there will be an aggressive outreach campaign to schools and school districts so they take advantage of this information as quickly as possible. two areas that this committee can have the most impact are in the areas of grants and emergency communications. with regards to grants, grants can be used so -- i understand that fema preparedness grants can be used by local jurisdictions to support school safety enhancements. i recommend this committee consider ways to ensure fema grant dollars that are used for school safety are used to implement the best practices identified on the dhs school safety clearinghouse website and that they should be used on the most basic safety enhancements before anything else. expensive technology upgrades

should take a back seat to common-sense measures that enhance security. with regard to emergency communications, in parkland the first responder radios failed and were not interoperable, delaying help for victims who were dying on the third floor, waiting for medical attention. s.w.a.t. teams had to resort to using hand signals to avoid shooting each other because their radios failed. the 9/11 commission report highlighted this problem at the pentagon and at ground zero and nearly 20 years later, the same problem plagued our first responders at my son's school. this is not acceptable and it has to stop. congress can't force all first responder agencies to use a single radio system, but you can incentivize agencies to become instantly interoperable regardless of what radio system you're using. in addition to grants and communications improvements, i recommend congress pass the eagles act to reauthorize the

u.s. secret service's national threat assessment center so they can expand the reach to help states develop threat assessment programs. these programs can identify students that exhibit concerning behavior and get them the help they need before they commit acts of targeted violence. i also support the taps act which would result in a dhs-led process to develop threat assessment cape abilities. the secret service uses threat assessment teams to protect the president. the capitol hill police uses threat assessment teams to protect you in congress. our children deserve the same protection. in my view, the reason school shootings have been an epidemic for the last two decades is, number one, parents and community members have a mindset that it can't happen here. that false sense of security is partly due to the fact that schools are not being honest with the public about violence on their campus. additionally, schools are not

successfully establishing a positive culture and climate, as in many cases result in bullying, which can lead to school mass murder. we need to do a better job of teaching kids the tools to deal with their anger, rejection and failure later in life. florida has implemented laws to gain school district compliance, but i believe the most effective strategy to doing this is public pressure to make school districts prioritize safety and security. unfortunately, there is no school safety ratings system that currently exists to tell parents whether or not their school is safe. when parents go online to look at ratings of k through 12, many of them have an "a" rating. they don't realize that is just a academics. academics are important, but if the children don't come home from their school every day, nothing else matters. the car industry's crash test rating has improved car safety and decreased fatalities, but

for parents, there is no way to know if their child's school is safe. i believe a school safety ratings system would influence change nationwide. it has been 20 years since columbine and children continue to be murdered in their classroom. unfortunately, we know that the next school mass murderer is already out there. it is not a question of if, it is a question of when. we know what can be done to prevent it and we know what must be done to mitigate the risk of more lives lost. thank you very much and i look forward to your questions. >> i'd like to thank all the witnesses for their testimony. i remind each member that he or she will have five minutes to question the panel. i will now recognize myself for questions. ms. hogg, i want to take a

minute before i ask my question to show a video that march on our lives put out about active shooter drills in schools and the reality of what kids are going through today. for context, this is a real student and was not scripted. so let us play the video, please. >> good morning. welcome to this team building event. today we're going to be learning what to do in the event of an active shooter. we're going to bring in a special guest. she's actually an expert on this and she's going to be leading our team building event. this is kaleigh. >> if there was an active shooter, you would all be dead. when you talk out loud, the shooter can tell where you are and where you're hiding.

sometimes we play the game who can stay quietest the longest so we all remember. you can try and protect your friends by pushing the tables and chairs against the doors. you also have to put a piece of paper over the door window so they can't see in. you can't cry. it gives away your position and your hiding spot. and if you're in the bathrooms, you have to standing on the toilet seat and crunch down so they can't see your feet and they can't see your head so they don't know that you're in there. finally some of the things that can help the police. for example, if you hear a lot of bangs, like bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, the shooter might be down the hall. or if you have louder ones, like bang, bang, bang, he could be right outside your door. if the shooter comes in the room, screaming won't do anything. you have to try and fight back.

you can't escape -- we get taught the emergency window escape plan where you break the window, put clothes over the frame and climb through. our teacher used to sing a song. ♪ lock down lock down ♪ let's all hide ♪ lock the doors and stay inside ♪ ♪ crouch on down, don't make a sound ♪ ♪ and don't cry or you'll be found ♪ >> ms. hogg, can you tell the subcommittee what goes through your mind when you see this video and what should congress be doing to help ensure kids are safe in schools rather than putting the responsibility on kids to become experts in active shooter situations? >> so i was grateful enough to be able to be part of the

creation team on this video. and i remember when i first saw it, the first thing that came to mind was myself. i saw myself in that little girl that was giving that training because that was me. that's been me my whole life. as i said, i was born after columbine, and we learned those little rhymes, nursery rhyme things that are supposed to teach you how to survive when somebody comes into your school to murder you. additionally, i think there are many things that can be done that i addressed in my testimony. but i think of course i will always say this, the first step, though it may be difficult, is to address the gun violence epidemic. initially like i said, we must invest money into school mental health resources. we cannot just say again or hear again on my perspective members of congress say that they're going to do something about

mental health, because i completely agree with that, but then do absolutely nothing. i've seen what it's like. i am still in school. and i think for many people, many legislators like yourselves, school is different these days probably than when you went to school. there's so many extended pressures, extra pressures that we deal with every single day. so i really would push mental health. and i think you need to have those conversations with mental health professionals themselves to see what works best. yeah, i think like i said with that video, all i saw was myself growing up, because that was me and that still is and it will probably forever be me because that's what i was taught when i was learning my abcs. >> thank you. the chair recognizes mr. king. >> thank you, mr. chairman. let me thank all the witnesses, especially ms. hogg and mr. schachter for being here today and trying to make something

positive out of something so horrible. director maples, let me lead off with you. thank you for your work for homeland security from a neighboring state. you mentioned training programs and grants. do you think those programs are successful in preventing violence? and are schools implementing them? >> so the training programs that we have existing in new jersey, one of the biggest focus areas for us is on the preventative part so we're really focusing on everything from bus drivers to custodians to teachers to students. as far as if a classmate is demonstrating or a person they know in the community is demonstrating behavioral indicators that they should report that. part of the training become, one, recognizing what those behaviors are and, two, where to go with the information that maintains everyone's rights but allow us to look into it and mental health professionals. so we are implementing those across the state. >> do you finding the school districts taking it seriously? >> we do. in new jersey -- i'm sure there

are some outliers but we continue to work with them with the department of education to make sure that that training gets out there and they are taking it seriously. >> mr. schachter, along those lines, again, thank you for your testimony. you basically describe the lack of concern too many school districts have had and you've spoken all over the country now. do you find the concern is increasing? is there still an apathy in certain districts thinking it's never going to hit them? >> it depends. if you've had a school shooting in your community, you're hypervigilant, but many school districts around this country still think it's not going to happen to them. you know, there's no way for parents to know whether or not your school is safe. there are so many things that we can do today that are low cost, no cost that have been implemented in florida. in broward county, the sixth largest school district in the country, we didn't even have a formal active response policy.

marjory stoneman douglas did not conduct a code red drill for several years prior to the shooting. so they didn't train their teachers, they didn't train their staff what to do in an emergency. and, god forbid, if an active shooter walks on your campus, what happened at marjory stoneman douglas, there's a lot of dead people and that needs to change. so in florida we have mandated, we have come to the realization that schools are not going to do the right thing. they have failed to protect our children. and in florida we have mandated that schools implement drills. we mandated every one of them has to have an active assailant response policy, they all have to train, and training in a lockdown, which is what many schools are doing, is just teaching the next school shooter exactly where to go. we need to be training them and giving them options-based training so they have lots of different options if, god forbid, something happens.

so extremely happy we've got the school safety website coming life, but we need more schools to be able to access that information and make their schools safe. there's still a lot of apathy in this country. >> is there any resistance or is it just apathy? i mean other people don't want to hear about it? like when the heroin epidemic was starting, many schools didn't want to admit there was a heroin epidemic. they were afraid what was going to happen with the next school budget or what the rating of the school would be. do you find any resistance like that when it comes to gun safety? >> you know, there is a culture to underreport violence on campus. just to give you an example, in broward county at marjory stoneman douglas between 2014 to 2017, they reported zero assaults, zero threats, zero intimidation. these are all not true and lies. so we need accurate reporting of

violence on campus. bullying can lead to mass murder. we need to be able to know what's happening on our campus so we can help the children, we can reduce violence on campus and that will make all children safe and make communities safe. it's a cooperative effort, so it's working with law enforcement inside the community, inside the schools. >> thank you for your dedication and 4 for your eloquence. i yield back, mr. chairman. >> thank you. i now recognize the gentleman from new york, mr. rose. >> thank you, mr. chairman. ms. hogg, thank you for showing the courage to come here today. do you think we've done enough, congress? >> i mean i think if you would have done enough, we wouldn't have to be having this conversation today, right? just to be frank with you. i think if we did enough, i wouldn't be here, i wouldn't have lost my friends.

lots of people back in my community in florida would not have lost their children or their loved ones. i think there's much more that needs to be done. i appreciate, as i stated in my testimony, you allowing me to be here today because that's the first step, but i think there's a myriad of things that we need to work on, like i said. and i believe part of school safety is implementing proactive measures that include things like gun violence prevention. that's something that so often is not wanted to be something that's talked about. but i think we need to remember, i think one of the greatest things you all can do as congressmen and women is continue to have young people who are being affected by this be at the forefront of these conversations. >> i want to get a sense of what you and your friends who went through this horrific crisis think about us in washington, d.c. if parkland happened tomorrow

again -- >> it might at a different school. >> it might. if sandy hook happened again tomorrow somewhere else, do you think we would act? >> with regards to school safety? >> and gun control. >> i hope one day you will. unfortunately, if that takes until people my age are in your positions, who have grown up learning school safety procedures and losing loved ones to gun violence, if you guys don't act, eventually i know things will happen because people my age who have been continually traumatized by instances of gun violence, whether that's in regards to in school or out of school gun violence and especially communities of color, we're going to be the legislators sitting in your seats. we'll be the ones who have lived through this and will have to make these changes. so if -- trying to imagine a world where school shootings

aren't a thing that happened to myself is like trying to describe a color to a mind man. i mean this has been my normal my whole life. it's unfortunate, but it has. and i think if sandy hook or stoneman douglas happened tomorrow, i'm not sure if many of congressmen, congresswomen today would do anything unless it was their own child or their own loved one who was taken to gun violence. >> ms. hogg, i don't think you and your friends at this point have any reason to trust us. i think i share your sentiments. i don't know how much more blood has to be spilled in this country. i don't know how many more children have to be afraid to school. i don't know how many more parents have to hug their kids before they go to school fearing that they're not going to come home before we do something. this is -- this is as sad as it

gets. you're right, it may have to come to you and your friends replace us up here before we actually act. ms. hogg, as you think about your teachers that you've had, do you think that they are capable during another parkland of discharging a weapon in your defense? >> i think it's not their responsibility. i come from a family of teachers, and i think when they went to college, when they went to school to become an educator, they weren't thinking that part of their job was going to have to be a security officer. so i -- like i stated in my testimony once before, we had an armed officer at my school. when it came to that moment of fight or flight, he went away. so the idea that teachers having guns would solve this issue is the same idea as giving another

person a gun to solve gun violence is the issue, if you know what i'm saying. when we hear those things like two guns will protect the majority of people from one bad guy with a gun, it is just sounding like we're trying to turn every single individual or every single teacher into an armed vigilante. that's something every teacher should not have to be. i cannot imagine if teachers were armed the amount of incidences that would take place that would be them killing a student who didn't happen to be the perpetrator of the violence and i think there would be more violence coming out of that if teachers were armed. >> thank you, ms. hogg, for your testimony and thank you for your leadership. i wish there were more folks around here like you. >> thank you. >> thank you. i'm now recognizing the gentleman from pennsylvania, mr. joyce. i'm sorry, he's gone.

recognize the gentleman from texas, mr. crenshaw. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, everyone, for being here. mr. schachter, thank you for being here. you're doing great justice to your son's memory by looking for the right solutions to this. you answered a lot of my questions because your testimony was so exact. you mentioned the national best practices clearing and the schoolsafety.gov being a great first step but there's going to be an issue with how well we get that information out to schools. do you have any information on the best way to do that? and then ms. martinez-prather, i'd like you to answer and mr. maples as well, what's the next step after what are deemed to be pretty good next steps? pretty good solutions already. >> the first thing that we're lacking is at the end of october that website is going to go live. so there's going to be a lot of

great resources on that website. it's very interactive so schools will be able to go on there, answer a series of questions to see where they are in the process of making their school safe and then that website will walk you through the process and tell you where your gaps are, where your deficiencies are, and then will actually direct you to grant dollars. to give you an example, one of the deficiencies that we have currently is that a lot of our grant programs, they're not implementing best practices, so what i would like to see is that once we have these best practices, once the website goes live, tie those best practices to the grant dollars. we want to make sure that schools are implementing the most effective measures to make school safe. we don't want schools implementing just some shiny object that's not going to have an impact. >> so the issue isn't that there's not enough grants or not the right grants, the issue is we're not trying that grant money to the right basic

practices. you've mentioned this too, what are the basic measures. can you answer that question as well and that's the next question i have for you both as well. >> so as far as low cost, no cost measures, for instance, just having a formal active assailant response policy. i'm sure there's a lot of schools around this country that don't have a simple policy. and to train your teachers and staff. these are low cost measures. training your staff to lock your doors, to teach with a locked door. identifying a safer corner in the classroom that children know where to go in an emergency. and then it's encouraging students to report violent threats. kids know who puts something on snapchat or instagram. we need to encourage them to see something, say something. more importantly, do something with that information that they know about. and then one of the problems at marjory stoneman douglas is law

enforcement that responded did not have access to live, actionable intelligence. the school district used ferpa to not share cameras with law enforcement so when they came scene, they didn't know where the shooter was. it took them 11 minutes to get into the first floor and 40 minutes to get to the third floor to administer medical attention to the ten kids that were shot and dying on the third floor. you know, as far as getting the word out, we need to work with every state school safety center to get that information out and populate it as broadly as possible. >> okay. we have one of those right here. ms. martinez-prather, are there any metrics or successes that we can speak of? >> regarding the federal clearinghouse, what's great about that is that it's an interagency effort. oftentimes from a state perspective you have multiple

agencies working on this effort in good faith saying different things and that confuses school districts. our role at the state level is to bring all that together, synthesize it, incorporate texas considerations, because we have a pretty comprehensive mandates for schools to follow, and push that back out to school districts. so i think that it's great that all of the agencies are working together on this effort. i think that's going to help with clear lines of communication and guidance. as far as texas really took a page from the state of virginia in passing its behavioral threat assessment legislation this session with this idea of prevention really needing to have a focus. it's part of that comprehensive piece. in the center we focus on mitigation prevention primarily. the idea here is we're creating a culture of situational awareness where students trust adults. they know they can go to

somebody. they know they're not snitching on another peer because we know that they have that intel. they have that information to share. most oftentimes they don't for various reasons, but knowing that they're able to report that information knowing that that individual is going to get help. we always stress that it's not intended to be a means of engaging exclusionary discipline. in texas there are going to be several pieces of data that will have to be collected in which our state education agency will be overseeing in terms of who's on that behavioral threat assessment team because the big focus is it has to be multidisciplinary. it's not just the school principal, it's not just the school counselor. you have your campus administration, a law enforcement officer, a mental health professional, a teacher, depending on the situation it's fluid. you may bring in an ad hawk memb -- ad hoc member that has a

relationship with the student. it captures behaviors that may not just lead to an act of violence. it could be a student threatening harm to themselves, it may be behaviors have changed that show there may be a substance abuse problem, maybe there's trauma experienced at home -- >> please wrap up your answer, please. >> i'm sorry. oh, yes. >> you can finish. >> sorry about that. >> i only get five minutes. >> it's a long answer but that's where texas is going in terms of its threat assessment. >> my time is all. thank you all for being here. it takes a lot of guts, especially at a young age, to come here, so thank you very much. >> thank you. next we'll recognize the general lady from illllinois, ms. underwood. >> children should be free to live their lives and go school without the fear of gun violence. unfortunately this is not the reality for their 58 million students in their first weeks of a new school year. just this tuesday students from

courtland elementary school participated in their first active shooter drill of the year. this is one of the many active shooter drills in training students and teachers will participate in this year to prepare for a day we all hope will never come, mr. schachter, thank you for being here to honor your son and froekt dmupts around the country. ms. hogg, thank you for joining us and sharing your experience. thank you for your leadership. you, your brother and your fellow advocates are an incredible inspiration to 345me. i also applaud march for our lives peace plan which makes recommendations. recommendations. i was glad to see it includes expanding background checks and dedicating fundinging for gun violence. these are just the first in a series of necessary steps. so ms. hogg in your testimony you encourage investments in mental health resources in schools. can you tell us more about why these investments are so

important to students like you? >> well, thank you for that. i feel kind of hyped up. so i think i've said this, i'm just going to reiterate some things that i've said before. like i said, we need nonaggressive pro actionary measures. i mean security measure, not mental health measures, it's almost as if we students are being punished for the ways of the world to protect us. punishment to protect is something that's been shown to be ineffective. additionally, we must not be suffocated by school security measures and by having trained mental health professionals there, i think that is helping. i think that's decreasing the amount of suffocation that these increased security measures are causing. i think when it comes to school security specifically, mental health professionals can help us deal with the increase of security due to the ways of the

world. like i said, the lack of action around gun violence prevention. i think specific mental health counselors not just guidance counselors. i cannot tell you the amount of times before even the shooting that happened at my school i went to my guidance counselor and the ratio of guidance counselor to student number is something that is outrageous to me. i remember i didn't do the math until after, and at a school, marjory stoneman douglas was about 4500 kids. there were four or five guidance counselors. my guidance counselor did not know my name until after the shooting when i went to her to ask for help. then i had to schedule towards the end of the week because she said it was busy because it was spring and she was trying to get kids into college. but really mental health professionals have helped me so much. and even then i mean i had some difficulty with the mental health professionals that were put in place at my school as a

reactive measure after the shooting that occurred. but we have to ensure that especially if it's in the post of a school shooting, these people are trauma trained. >> yes. >> if you put a guidance counselor who spends the majority of their time doing academic counseling into a situation where kids have watched their friends be murdered and bleed out on the floor next to them, it doesn't work. trying to get a kid into college and trying to explain to the kid why they saw what they saw is something that's impossible. >> thank you. after the conversation around keeping our school safe has to include a discussion on how we can ensure students feel safe, again at school after the traumatic events as you just described. last year "the washington post" had an analysis which found 187,000 students have been exposed to gun violence at schools since columbine. we're facing a future in which hundreds of thousands of americans will be carrying these

physical and mental scars for the rest of their lives. can you talk a little bit and briefly about the long term challenges that you and your classmates face in the aftermath of the shooting? we touched on the trauma, but anything else that you want to share with the committee today. >> yeah. i mean additionally when it comes to what you guys can do to help in aiding in trauma, the first thing you can do is address gun violence as an issue and take action on that because at least for my trauma i know many other of my friends and other victims of gun violence, every single week when another shooting happens and we see it on the news, whether it's a mass shooting or a local shooting in a community nearby, we're retraumatized. we feel like we're back in the moment we went through a shooting ourselves. those stages of grief restart every single week. every single week -- sorry i'm continuing on. but every single week i watch "cbs sunday morning" and they usually address school shootings when they happen.

every single sunday for a long time and that's been a family tradition of my since i was 5 years old and i had to stop watching it. i would hear the stories of people that went through school shootings every single sunday and i couldn't do it because i wouldn't be ready to go to school monday mentally. >> thank you. as a nurse i know it's not uncommon for people who have lived through school shootings to experience posttraumatic stress and other traumas. this is especially true for children and we're going to work to address it. thanks to all the witnesses for being here, and i yield back my time. >> thank you. i now recognize the gentleman from mississippi, mr. guest. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i also have an experience with school shootings. as a prosecutor, i had the opportunity to be involved in the investigation and preparing a case for trial of one of the first school shootings in the country, the pearl high school shooting on october 1st, 1997. luke woodham early that morning killed his mother before going to school.

he then concealed a rifle in an overcoat, entered pearl high school where he then opened fire on multiple students, killing christina menafee, alina dew appeared injuring several other students. i'm also aware of mental health affect. he had mental health issues and attempted at trial to say the jury should find him not guilty by reason of insanity. the jury rejected that claim and said that mental illness did not rise to the level where he should not be held responsible for his actions and luke woodham today is serving three life sentences plus 140 years. but one of the actions on that day was an action by one of the school administrators. the school administrator there in the school, when the school administrator heard gunfire, he immediately went to his vehicle, he obtained his firearm and he was able to apprehend luke woodham before he left the campus that day. i will tell you from my

investigation and working with law enforcement, we believe and are very confident that his actions that day saved additional lives. because of his prompt response, because there was additional rounds of ammunition, luke woodham would have continued this rampage if he would not have been apprehended very quickly. i'm aware that in response to parkland that recently earlier this year the legislature in florida passed a law which was signed by the governor that would allow school officials in florida to be armed. it expands what they call in florida the guardian program. and that program, though, does set forth stipulations. those stipulations include, one, that the school district must approve the measures so, therefore, schools are not required to do that but schools have the option to opt in. two, teachers must volunteer for the program. no one is required to participate, but teachers have the opportunity to volunteer. they must undergo background checks. there must be psychiatric evaluations and there also must

be specific training by law enforcement to make sure that teachers are trained. and so, mr. maples, my question to you is do you believe that the response by the florida legislature in allowing school districts to opt into a system that i've just referred to, do you believe that should be part of this discussion that we are having as it relates to school violence and school shootings? >> so let me start out by saying this is an incredibly complex issue, school safety in general. i think that's pretty clear from the testimony and certainly from all of your questions. as part of -- as part of what we're trying to do in new jersey, and that's all i can answer to is the new jersey aspect of this. we're looking at every solution out there, whether it be the violence prevention, whether it be measures like arming teachers, we're looking at everything. but i will tell you that the very first steps, and i think mr. crenshaw asked the question about what are the next steps that we take. it has to be about that initial training.

exactly what mr. schachter was talking about, adhering to the best practices, the plan. no plan survives are first contact. that's something we used to say in my community. i worked at cia for most of my career protecting people. we have to have a plan in place. until -- one great example of this is you could have the best s.w.a.t. team in the world on stand by in the east wing of a school like stoneman douglas and if somebody lets him in the back door on another wing, people are going to die and it's an unfortunate consequence of that. so we have to talk about locking the doors. teaching kids not to open the doors. so i will tell you that while we looked at those, we really want to make sure those fundamental foundational aspects are in place first and foremost. >> and i would agree with you. our first mission should be that our children when we put them on the bus or parents drop them off at schools, that even before those children are educated that they return home safely to their families, so i understand that. i have worked with law

enforcement and i have worked with other groups to try to make our schools safe. and first and foremost, we want to be able to prevent anyone from going onto the school to accomplish any act of violence and i understand that. there are multiple programs and we are talking about prevention. but in the case where someone does enter onto the school grounds and where there is an active shooter situation, do you believe that laws such as those passed in florida, should those be things that we are also talking about? should that be part of the discussion, the overall global discussion on how we are going to protect our children? i have a sophomore in high school. and every day when he goes to school, i am confident he is going to return, but i know just as you have talked about as well, we always say it's not going to happen in our community. that's going to happen somewhere else. that's not going to happen in my school. i've seen firsthand it happen in my community. i know about it. and so my question is once we get past the things that we're going to try to do to, first of all, prevent, is arming

teachers -- should that be something that we should consider as a last resort to make sure that we can stop the shooting as quickly as possible? >> just to simply sum up, as part of looking and addressing everything, i think we should have the conversation about everything. but recognizing things like training, things like real world pulling the trigger is a very difficult thing to do and making sure somebody is prepared to do that and i think ms. hogg summed it up that teachers are there to teach so it can be a big challenge for them to adopt a mindset that they're a protector with a weapon. so, yes, we should consider everything on the table and have reasonable discourse about it 100%. but as a last measure is at the end of that conversation, once you hit the fundamentals, then we should have that conversation very carefully because there are a lot of challenges associated with it. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i apologize for going over and i yield back. >> thank you. the gentleman from louisiana is

recognized, mr. richmond. >> let me thank you, mr. chairman, for convening this hearing today on a very complex but serious matter. i would just respond to my colleague, mr. guest, that we are really all just a product of our life experiences and they shape how we think of things. and i know the conversation about arming teachers. i coached high school baseball. and mr. schachter mentioned interoperability and the ability to communicate. in my life experience, i would have grave concern as a baseball coach if there was an active shooter situation about what happens if i have a gun and the perpetrator has a gun and the police officers get there and have to decide who's the good guy and who's the bad guy. in my experience, most times people, especially police, assume that i'm the bad guy and that would worry me.

but i don't think it's something that we can't have a conversation about and i think enter -- interoperability is important. we went through that after hurricane katrina, we couldn't talk to each other and it's very scary. that part of the conversation is really about limiting the carnage. i really want us to focus on preventing it in the first place. so when we have that conversation, i think there are small steps we can take such as universal background checks, things of that nature. limiting the size of ammunition magazines. if we're talking about limiting carnage. but my question for you, ms. hogg, would be do you think students are ready for a see something, say something

approach which has made this country safer in airports and to terrorism and the question would be do you think our students are ready for an approach like athi really important in this conversation. i can speak on behalf of myself but not every student. for myself how i personally feel about the whole idea of is that although it's important, although it can prevent major things like what happened at my school, it puts a certain pressure on the student as though it's our responsibility to take care of these things. and after something happens like what happened at my school, often times i feel as though students felt as though they were being the ones being were being theac ones being accountable for the government and police officers inaction atn my school. a so as much as i think it's important and i think it's a good way, a good noninvasive, tt

pretty noninvasive way of these things from happening, i do not think it's s drastic enough. a and additionally much like what happened with increased securith at places like airports and everywhere else after everythin that happened, in september of 2001, i think we need to e's th acknowledge that there are always when you have that situation, see something, say something, there's going to be personal biases that are be injected into the s minds, the souls of individuals who are being the ones who are supposedw to be seeing something and saying something. i think that leads to a lot of danger with regards to whether that be a student seeing something and saying something i about aas student maybe just because of their personal bias, personal racial bias or personae ideologic bias, if you know what i'm saying. >> i do.drastic and i think that something this complex and something this oach. drastic we really do need a belt suspenders type approach.

so whether that's more school counselors where there's an approach to see something, say e something, there's a rrconcern.t i look at how we fight terrorism in this country and do it with hope intelligence and information gathering. i think that at some point onalb unfortunately weia all have tha responsibility and we would hope that people don't bring in their personal bias, but it's americab we're humans, and i think that it's -- it's a problem.ion, inasmuch as we can prepare for l thel active shooter situation, what we really want is to nderga prevent it.rt and i will just tell you as a fu parentl who drops a kid off to kindergarten every day possible, i am very fearful that he doesn't go home. as i bought his school uniforms this year, mr. schachter, i'm sure that you've had to go to te through this especially because you have other children. i had to make the decision do ii buy the kevlar square that goes

in the backpack. parents shouldn't have to be doing that. when i was in high school, our drills consisted of stop, drop and ouroll. now the drills that our children are going through are run, hide and fight. and so the real thing is that we as americans also have to accept our responsibility as adults to the divide, to the hate, to thef bullying, and to all the other things that are adding to this sense, because if it's not in a school, then it will be in a church like mother emmanuel. if it's not in a church like mother emmanuel, it will be trer of life synagogue. if notli there, it's a safeway h store where our colleague, gabbt giffords, was shot. have if not in a grocery store, it pc will be a baseballt field wher our colleague, steve scalise was shot. so we really have to protect ou most vulnerable, which is our children. but we have to do a better job as americans of leading, loving and showing the leadership to prevent this. so i think you all did your part

today by being here and i think congress needsin to do our partr enacting those reasonable measures that can stop these nte things before they start. so thank you for being here. >> i'd like to thank the ye gentleman.ar the you hiknow, it is unfortunate t this year one of the highest selling products in new jersey for going back to school were ml bulletproof bookar bags. i now recognize the general lady from new york, ms. clark.>> >> thank you very much, mr. chairman.and your and i thank our panelists for really lending your expertise and your common sense concerns to today's discussion.colu columbine, virginia tech, sandy hook, community college, ol sho parkland, each time our nation

experiences another school shooting, we send out our thoughts and prayers. but thoughts and prayers don't stop bullets.hootin 20 years have passed since columbine, but school shootingsa have become only more and more common. we need to take action, we must take action. we need to and must confront, tackle and end this gun violenc epidemic once and for all. ms. hogg, i want to get from you how your daily life has changed since that shooting. >> so when i was preparing for my testimony today, and we weren discussing this, i realized that pretty much everything in my ic life has changed. i think one of the greatest changes was the loss not er and necessarily the physical loss oo people like my brother and other victims and my friends that wenl through the school shooting are alongside me, but the loss of nt our past aselves, the loss of ourselves who were innocent and believed like mr. schachter said

so eloquently today we believe that this would never happen to us.d it se i could go through the specifics but it would take me probably days. but every single aspects of my life has changed. it seems as though, like i the stated before,ag i was 14 when experienced the school shooting. and that's the age when kids are kind of ready to have that john hughes high school experience, if you know what i'm saying. and for me i went directly of m from -- it seems as though i had to go from childhood to adulthood and skip that period . life that most people do i th have the chance to experience where they get to be a teenager they get to be a child.at's so and i think about this every single day. my goal for this year was to is learn howsh to be a teenager, a that's something that no child who is 16 should have to the hil experience. but i mean like i said, the fact that i'm even here today, the fact that i spend my weekends on the hill when i can talking with

my policy makers, everything has changed. and i really just hope that no other child has to have this experience of losing those have precious teenage years where i n they get the chance to have -- to be stupid in a sense, to have fun. but i think that's one of the greatest ways my life has been affected. >> thank you for sharing that with us. ms. maples when you testified e last year thect horrific shooti in parkland, florida, santa fe,, texas, were still t recent and t many states were just in the et. beginning phases of instituting policies to improve school mitte safety and in some cases gun control measures. now overer a year out can you tl the committee of any challenges that you have had while instituting new school security measures and are there any lessons learned that you think are important for other states to know? >> well, i'm start out by the ch addressing the challenges piece. some of the challenges have beet

making sure that the school a districts are all getting the kt relevant information inha a o at coordinated way.hehe we continue to work on that and that is something we are able to do at the state level in new to jersey. the an implementation of the something, say something, in new jersey we are doing that. activ we have rolled that in through o an attorney general's directive that school-related threats are rolled into our see something, say something campaign. new jersey is a little different lot of different states. my fok my office coordinates everything from the federal, state and local level. that's a little bit different model than many other states. i will tell you that getting school districts to recognize those threats in the -- what are threats and reporting those to law enforcement who then report it to us or directly to us, that is a challenge. but it's something that we're really focused on, getting that public messaging out there. my staff is constantly engaging with the schools.blic m one of the great benefits we

have in new jersey is the sc department of education. we h the commissioner has essentialld loengd us his school safety fet team. they report to meteam but they'e educations. employees.d th so we're trying to really coalesce around that one common goal of protecting our schools together in that way. so the challenges of joining any type of -- you want to think of homeland security and education linking up,p, but we do and we' reallyme focused on that. ctim >> appreciate that, mr. maples. let me just close by saying that having been a victim myself, y. watching my colleague getting gunned down in the new york city council, that trauma never oes leaves you. so, ms. hogg, i thank you for your courage. the trauma goes beyond what anyone can imagine when you're y in a space, you're a survivor. there's so many other dynamics,' so i can relate to all that d bk you've shared with m us today because i'm still recovering to

this very day, and i yield back, mr. chairman. >> i'd like to thank the general lady. the gentleman from texas,u mr.a green, is recognized. >> thank you,cognized mr. chair. i thank the ranking member as well. and i apologize for the condition that we find ourselves in. i sayyo iu. apologize because w have failed you. the adults have failed you. we shouldn't have allowed pable unlimited assault weapons on the streets. capable of killing scores in seconds.yo we failed you. we ought to do something about it.

we don't have the will. we've lost our way. we failed you. we are at a point regrettably in our history where we have to nca prepare for the unthinkable to deal with the inconceivable. that's where we are. gone are the days when children had to have as a part of their exercise a fire drill. it's an active shooter drill now. gone are the days when there was a rumor of a person having a knife on campus at my school. the principal just stopped a everything, brought us all into the auditorium and had a meeting. who has the knife?

now we have assault weapons on campuses.s.l with so we have to deal with the inconceivable. and i have to ask you about something that i regrettably must ask about, but i think we have to prepare for this be wheh unthinkable, inconceivable event. and that would be, of course, whether or not we are ready to v deal with a chemical or biological event. we can't wait. we have to prepare.e.pr for the unthinkable if we're going to deal with the inconceivable. so i askinco asncei gently as iu we adequately prepared for an attack of this kind on a school

campus where it should never happen, where it would be inconceivable? are we having any drills, any information, intelligence er equ accorded our studentsip so that they can deal with these things available? where are we? and if we're notadul there, the perhaps the adults won't fail us as we go forward.woul i'm one of the adults. would someone care to answer, please? >> yeah, i mean, obviously we'rn extremely unprepared. our county doesn't even have an active shooter policy, let alone aa policy to protect us from a t chemical or biological attack. we're just trying to get teachers to teach with a locked door. you know, we're justtne trying move the needle. we're so far away from where we need to be, you know, but we can

prevent 80%, 90% of these attacks. we've got the gold standard in an anonymous reporting app developed in colorado. it's called safeitti tong tell. they've stopped thousands of young people from committing an suicide.mici suicidede a is the homicide issn if we can stop d suicide, we ca stop homicide. and they've stopped hundreds of school shootings. post-parkland, we've had dozens of states implement those d by anonymous reporting apps.peop every day we hear in the news about mass shootings stopped by courageous people that are sending in tips. and kids do it. so we can stop a lot of these, as we were talking about on the prevention side, but we have to prepare. stop 1 1ththese.% we have to be cognizant of that. so that's why what are we going to do? we need to decide what are we going to do if a guy with agoin walks on that school campus.

how are we going to save lives? that's what we need. that needs to be addressed, unfortunately, all over this country. >> thank you. i could not agree with you more. and i regret that we find ourselves being reactive when wu had a great opportunity to be e proactive and deal with these issues, such that we wouldn't fu have to deal with there a unthinkable. but there's a future, and we f still have the opportunity to change the circumstance if we but only will acquire the . courage and the will.time. i yield back the balance of my time. >> i thank the gentleman. i'd like to now recognize the gentlelady from texas, miss jackson lee.

>> mr. chairman, thank you. i want to ask whether the go chairman or the gentleman from wants to go andly i will go after him. just wanted to offer to you. mr. chairman, thank you, and ton the ranking member for this very vital hearing. i thank the witnesses.ave to we're sometimes in overlapping hearings, and we have to make our way to an important hearing let me acknowledge in particulaa a dad who lost his son. your face is familiar. i know that you wish that it was not. and i thank you for putting you energy in a place where those oi us who are parents would never want to imagine. i think this committee is well e suited and this house in this

present leadership, with the members of this committee, prepared to listen and to adher to some of theyo things that we can do. we don't want to call the roll, but i think you know. why didn't it stop at sandy hook? why wasn't something done?start we triedwi very hard. so i want to first start with lauren. we work a lotlive in houston wi march for our lives. i like the word march because we follow. but i know that it is important that we act. let me ask you this question, because i have talked to teenagers who, like you, have tr learn to be a teenager. the i whatde is it like with your pee, to have to live with the idea of death, death of your fellow oul students, death at a school? what should we know about that

as you are growing up? >> so for myself, because i was 14 years olddye when this happe, as ii stated previously, i thio that's aol pivotal time in your life. i mean, all of the four high school years are a pivotal time in your life. it's whenit's wain a lot of your brain development occurs.when you it's when you're supposed to learn a lot of s thingshoot at . and when you have something lika a school shooting, when you havo something like your friends andn teachers being murdered in the r classroom next to you, i think r there's somethinges drastic tha happens within yourself. and i think it's important to l. address that with regards to trauma, to gun violence, it's hard to heal when this issue io continues every t single day. it's kind of like rubbing salt into the wound. that is our trauma.rlier i mean, the previous question earlier that i was asked, how has your life changed every t wh single day, and i think just every single aspect. when i go into a restaurant, i

have to sit with my back not against the door because i'll feel like somebody will come in. when i go to a movie theater, i have to always make surere i kne where thel exits are and know w i can be close enough toay be ae to run out in time. to even in crowded spaces, places c used to go and loved to go to, whether that be disneyland or ao concert, i can't go there without being scared that be something is going to happen. so even the things that would be traditionally viewed as fun andd an escape turn into themselves an act of trauma where you don't know what to do and you don't know how to act. >> thank you. >> yeah, thank you.alex >> let me ask, i'm going to give you a combined answer. you obviously can't hear that fs from t alex, but for us to do n something along with what we've heard from our experts, you're an expert in terms of making a

school solid, but in doing this comprehensively, we have to deae with guns.those this is my question. mental health and added resources for those students we miss. i've been working for many years on anti-bullying, which has accelerated, cyberbullying and otherwise. herwis a positive way of reinforcing schools.and your so would you respond to that in context of your organization and your group. mental health, anti-bullying, guns, and the idea of how we strengthen a school to protect its most precious inhabitants. >> you know, i'm on the commission that's investigating the marjory stoneman douglas d tragedy.e we hadand a presentation by flr high school, which developed a culture and climate survey that

they give to all of their ciency students. it's made theirr school safe. i think that's a deficiency in m our atschools, that we're not doing culture climate surveys of our students and of our teacher because to reduce violence on campus, reduce bullying, if we don't know what's happening on campus, we can't fix it. i alluded in my presentation and in questions that we don't know, you know -- schools underreport violence on campus. we need to get an accurate reporting. in florida, we require schools to report violence. we came to the conclusion that what they're reporting is absolutely garbage, and it's n c totallye incorrect. we have now put measures in nale place to the commissioner of education to financially penalize superintendents that g consistently underreport school violence. so we need to get that under an control, but we need to find ouo

what's happening first so that we can tackle this bullying problem and we can provide better mental health to our students and reduce violence on campus, which will reduce violence in our community no because if we're not giving kid when they're in school the tool to deal with rejection and failure as they get older, we have horrible consequences. >> let me thank you and the ex experts as well.hairma my time has expired. but let me just say to the witne chairman, using the passion of our two witnesses have experienced it firsthand, can i help us be guided in the right direction for working on this very crucial issue. with that, mr. chairman, i yield back. >> i'd likefr to thank the h. gentlelady. i recognize the patientnt gentleman from florida, mr. deutsch. >> thanks very much, mr. chairman. thanks to you and theing memb rt member for calling the hearing. i'm grateful to you and your

staff for including two of my constituents as witnesses and extending an invitation to me to join you as your guest. so i also want to express my gratitude to the thoughtful and dedicated participation of so manyy members of this committee today. thanks to the witnesses, all uld like you, for your testimony and hard work to make students safer.alss first, i'd like to seek unanimous consent to enter a statement into the record from thearents o surviving father ofo president of stand with obje parkland, a group formed by parents from stoneman douglas. if i may?le view >> without objection. >> thank you, mr.ght chairman. these families have varying political views,al but they wri when it comes to protecting ours children and staff at school, w all agree on three key outcomes. secure the school campus, implement better mental health program, and practice responsible firearm ownership. i hope their goals can be shared by all of its here today regardless of our political pr

affiliation. i feel so fortunate to know you, so proud to represent you, and so utterly heartbroken by the circumstances that have brought us together. survivors of this le cri horrible crisis of gunsi violen in america. you lost your beloved alex. miss hogg, you lost friends, classmates, and teachers. alyssa, scott, martin, jamie, luke, chris, gina, alaina, carmen, peter were all lost at marjory stoneman douglas on r pn february 14th, i 2018. but you've turned your pain int action. you've been a fierce advocate for expanding the level of ou bc expertise in schools, school districts, and states to improve policies. you've become anthe firsexpertt in secure infrastructure. i knew from the first moment i spoke with you that within a

short period of time you would be a national leader on keeping our schools safe. so i want to ask you the eagles act, hr-3714, will expand the national threat assessment center. by doing that, what can that do to help ensure that schools hav the expertise to keep their the students and staffst safe?erythi >> thank you,ng congressman, ane thank you for everything you've done to of protect our childrea you've been a great championbou that. as far as the eagles act goes, talked about this in my opening statement. i'm a strong supporter. i hope that we can get the full committee's support and pass as this.teams th it is great legislation. we know that threat assessment n teams that, the secret service has developed protect the president and protect congress, andbe this is a major problem i schools. we know that threat assessments work, but it needs to be done

correctly. there was a threat assessment ed done on the.the murderer in 20t that was completely botched.ha the problem was the assistant principal that did the threat assessment had no idea how to perform one.his he had never conducted a threat assessment in hisis 30-year history. he didn't know where the paperwork was.e wrong. and it was completely done sti wrong. i feel that if it wastoday so d correctly, my little boy might be still alive today. so by passing the eagles act, we can give education to all ted schools on proper threat assessments to prevent these acts of targeted violence before they happen.onary we've got to stop being assess reactionary and beme proactive, and that's what threat assessments do. >> thank you veryr much. miss hogg, thanks for your than leadership in your school and across the country through march for our lives. and thanks for your really powerful testimony today. the march for our lives peace plan for a safer america

includes a call, among other things, for community-based solutions. part of that call, you support representative moore's bill, hr-2457, the national de-escalation of violence and communityto safety training act. one thing you've not had an opportunity to talk about is why community-based interventions is such an important part of your peace plan.ni >>ty-b community-based interven programs, as we've talked about today ofearlier, when we're o talking about proactive measures, are the perfect example of this. impor they go in before these things happen, as i stated previously. it's so important for us, when we created this plan, to include that because we have seen across the country, especially in communities of color and lower socioeconomic communities, how l effective these are in preventing community gun violence. i have so many examples of individuals and stats about lif stuff with regards to violence

intervention programs, but one of the greatest examples is life camp. it's out of the bronx, founded by thisdi womanrector go he na. they have violence interrupters that go in and train youth frome the community how to be violenc interruptersof instead of incite of this violence and how to. kep out of this violence.r scho i think if we could apply that to our school system across the country, i cannot even imagine the greatat effects we would se in preventing things like what happened at our school. >> thank you.o mr. chairman, i want to just thank you again. it's so clear from the testimony today, from the expertise on pai this panel, from the dedication of all four of our panelists to that hel there is more that we do in a bipartisan way to help strengthen and bolster the efforts of our witnesses and people just like them all around the country to help keep our school safe and to help keep

kids safe and to prevent the e kind of trauma that we've heard so eloquently spoken about.gratl we can do this, and i'm so d to grateful for your leadership on this issue. i look forward to working with you. again, you're extendingso anme invitation for me to join you e today is something that i will forever be grateful for. >> i'd like to thank the gentleman for accepting the invitation. they're very fortunate to have you as their representative in congress. i know the work that you do tirelessly for your constituents. and you have been proactive on these issues.be so i just thought it was fair you had the opportunity today to be here.wa so thanknt you. we're going to go for a quick s second round.i me i justntio wanted to ask, mr. clples, as i mentioned in my openingea statement, dhs along

with other agencies is working on a clearing house that will u compile best practices for various school safety practices. can you describe what you want u tol see out of clearing house make it useful for new jersey? >> sure.ab absolutely. so one of my . roles, in addition to being thehebein director of homeland securitying i'm also the federally designated homeland security adviser, which is a dhs designation. we work hand inin hand with federal dhs on the wide variety of issues that we confront in hr the state of new jersey. i lead in to say that from a aa clearing housece perspective, wt absolutely welcome that.plan t i think a place for a structured, directed, and concise plan, the best practices themselves, can really help us bolster what we're trying to do at the state level.rsey but we do a lot proactively in new jersey, but having that federal interface and being able to point that back to someone from

a federal governmentss our 2 cay powerful in talking to a superintendent across our 21 rio counties. so to theusming o degree that t. clearing house is coming onlinee we welcome it. and i think that it will continue to help make our school safe.peop >> thank you. let me just -- i don't want to keep people much longer. i just want to thank all the witnesses for their testimony today. this has been an honor for me to chair this hearing and hear from all of you. all with different experiences on this one very important subject. you brought up interoperability, which has been myar main focus y since 2012, arriving here on this committee and the author of

the interoperability bill for dhs. just school safety has been my main thrust. so thank all of you for being t here today for your expert testimony. with that, i will -- there's something i have to do.li okay. now that we've finished with our questions, i would like to ask unanimous consent to enter into the official record written testimony from the national association of school resource officers, every town for gun safety, sandy hook promise, national association of school

psychologists, the naacp legal defense fund, and materials from the american institute of architects. without objection, so ordered. i want to thank the witnesses for their valuable testimony today and the members for their questions. the members of the subcommitteeo may haver additional questions for the witnesses, and we ask that you respond expeditiously in writing to those questions. pursuant to the committee rule 7d, the hearing record will be open for ten days. without objection, hear nothing further business, the subcommittee stands adjourned.

we can nights this week, we're featuring american mystery tv programs as a preview of what's available every weekend on c-span3. tonight, alexander hamilton's military career and his relationship with george washington. the site of washington's 1780

headquarters hosted this event. watch tonight beginning at 8:00 eastern on c-span3. enjoy american history tv this week and every weekend on c-span3. we ceknights this week, we' showcasing book tv and what's available every weekend b. tonight, the theme is world politics. ambassador dennis ross discusses modern israel's founding fathers. the former director of russian analysis at the cia talked about the downward spiral in relations between the u.s. and russia and where it may lead. watch tonight beginning at 8:30 eastern on c-span2 and enjoy book tv this week and every weekend on c-span2.

sunday night on q&a, historian jeff guinn discusses his book "the vagabonds," ant t -- about the summer road trips taken by thomas edison and henry ford. >> they wanted to demonstrate, hey, guess what, you can go get in your car and do these things too. but they weren't going to have to try to light their own campfires. they weren't going to eat cold beans out of cans. they weren't just going to put a blanket on the ground. they had all these different amenities. they had a refrigerated car, powered by edison batteries so they could have fresh dairy. they had chefs who would prepare gourmet meals at night. in the morning, they would dress in freshly ironed clothes. but you see, they were so famous and america was so grateful to them, that that didn't matter. the point was, hey, we're out in cars, traveling and seeing these things. you can do it too.

>> sunday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span's "q&a." the house will be in order. >> for 40 years, c-span has been providing america unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and public policy events from washington, d.c., and around the country so you can make up your own mind. created by cable in 1979, c-span is brought to you by your local cable or satellite provider. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. hillary clinton spoke at an awards ceremony honoring women working to advance global peace and security. she also commented on the impeachment inquiry against president trump. georgetown university hosted the hour and a half