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Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) today joined Senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Chris Murphy (D-CT), and 17 others in introducing the Students, Teachers, and Officers Preventing (STOP) School Violence Act.

Rubio’s statement in English and Spanish can be found below. A high-quality version for broadcast.  A high-quality version is available in English and Spanish.
 
English: There’s always going to be a debate about guns, but I think the one thing everyone can agree on is that our schools need to be safe and that we need to know someone if they are dangerous. What happened in Parkland is because, while different groups knew that this guy was dangerous, nobody acted on it. The STOP School Violence Act is a law that is going to give federal money to school districts in states all across the country to be able to identify someone before they act, someone who is a threat, so we can get out ahead of it and prevent them from doing something so terrible like what we saw in Parkland, Florida, just three weeks ago.
 
Español: Aunque hay un debate sobre las leyes de armas de fuego, en lo que no hay debate es que nuestros estudiantes deberían estar seguros en las escuelas y esta nueva ley que yo presente hoy es una ley que va a proveer fondos federales para ayudar a las escuelas a identificar y prevenir estos ataques antes que ocurran. Sabemos quienes son estas personas peligrosas y esto va a ayudar a que las escuelas puedan identificar a alguien antes que cometan algo tan terrible como lo que ocurrió en Parkland.   
 
STOP School Violence Act of 2018  
 
The Student, Teachers, and Officers Preventing School Violence Act of 2018, or the STOP School Violence Act, reauthorizes and amends the 2001-2009 bipartisan Secure Our Schools Act to offer Department of Justice grants to states to help our schools implement proven, evidence-based programs and technologies that STOP school violence before it happens.  
 
The bill permits grants to fund evidence-based programs and practices to:

• Train students, school personnel, and local law enforcement to identify warning signs and intervene to stop school violence before it happens;
• Improve school security infrastructure to deter and respond to threats of school violence, including the development and implementation of anonymous reporting systems for threats of school violence;
• Develop and operate school threat assessment and crisis intervention teams; and
• Facilitate coordination between schools and local law enforcement.

The bill would authorize $75 million for FY 2018, and $100 million annually for the next ten years, which may be partially offset from a DOJ research program called the Comprehensive School Safety Initiative.