wa-law.org > bill > 2025-26 > SB 6042 > Original Bill
Following the tragic events of September 11, 2001, the government's primary role in protecting the health, safety, and well-being of its citizens has been underscored. The legislature recognizes that there is a need to focus on the development and implementation of comprehensive safe school plans for each public school. The legislature recognizes that comprehensive safe school plans for each public school are an integral part of rebuilding public confidence. In developing these plans, the legislature finds that a coordinated effort is essential to ensure the most effective response to any type of emergency. Further, the legislature recognizes that comprehensive safe school plans for each public school are of the utmost importance and will help to assure students, parents, guardians, school employees, and school administrators that our schools provide the safest possible learning environment.
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The legislature finds that, in 2003, the Washington association of sheriffs and police chiefs was directed to develop statewide building mapping software standards and to operate a statewide first responder building mapping information system. The legislature acknowledges that school districts were required to implement their safe school plans consistent with this system, but were not required to update the mapping information unless funding was available. The legislature finds that, since 2003, state appropriations have largely supported only operational costs, leaving school districts responsible for the cost of updating or remapping facilities. As a result, the legislature acknowledges that many school districts lack accurate and comprehensive school mapping information, which is essential for effective emergency response and public safety.
In 2019, the legislature directed the joint legislative audit and review committee to study the statewide school mapping system. The study identified significant limitations, such as inconsistent usage, outdated data, and lack of interoperability across platforms. Despite the existence of the rapid responder system, only 52 school districts accessed the system weekly or daily, while 74 districts logged in once per year or less. At least 33 districts have adopted alternative mapping platforms, creating fragmentation and barriers to coordinated emergency response. Following this study, the legislature acknowledges that it repealed requirements related to school mapping and transferred existing data to the office of the superintendent of public instruction in 2021.
The legislature finds that the rise in school shootings and other threats to student safety necessitates a renewed commitment to comprehensive, interoperable, and secure mapping protocols. Emergency responders must have immediate access to accurate, site-specific data that supports rapid decision making and coordinated action. Therefore, the legislature intends to strengthen safe school plans by requiring standardized school mapping formats and features, ensuring compatibility with public safety platforms, and recognizing that sensitive data is protected from public disclosure.
The legislature considers it to be a matter of public safety for public schools and staff to have current safe school plans and procedures in place, fully consistent with federal law. The legislature further finds and intends, by requiring safe school plans to be in place, that school districts will become eligible for federal assistance. The legislature further finds that schools are in a position to serve the community in the event of an emergency resulting from natural disasters or human-induced disasters.
Schools and school districts shall consider the guidance and resources provided by the state school safety center, established under RCW 28A.300.630, and the regional school safety centers, established under RCW 28A.310.510, when developing their own individual comprehensive safe school plans. Each school district shall adopt and implement a safe school plan. The plan shall:
Include required school safety policies and procedures;
Address emergency mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery;
Include provisions for assisting and communicating with students and staff, including those with special needs or disabilities;
Include a family-student reunification plan, including procedures for communicating the reunification plan to staff, students, families, and emergency responders;
Use the training guidance provided by the Washington emergency management division of the state military department in collaboration with the state school safety center in the office of the superintendent of public instruction, established under RCW 28A.300.630, and the school safety and student well-being advisory committee, established under RCW 28A.300.635;
Require the building principal to be certified on the incident command system;
Take into account the manner in which the school facilities may be used as a community asset in the event of a community-wide emergency;
Set guidelines for requesting city or county law enforcement agencies, local fire departments, emergency service providers, and county emergency management agencies to meet with school districts and participate in safety-related drills;
Subject to the availability of amounts appropriated for this specific purpose, include the creation and maintenance of school maps that meet the requirements in section 3 of this act and are made available to local and state first responder agencies that provide emergency services to the mapped schools.
To the extent funds are available, school districts shall annually:
Review and update safe school plans in collaboration with local emergency response agencies;
Conduct an inventory of all hazardous materials;
Update information to reflect current plans, including:
Identifying all staff members who are trained on the national incident management system, trained on the incident command system, or are certified on the incident command system; and
Identifying school transportation procedures for evacuation, to include bus staging areas, evacuation routes, communication systems, parent-student reunification sites, and secondary transportation agreements; and
Provide information to all staff on the use of emergency supplies and notification and alert procedures.
School districts are encouraged to work with local emergency management agencies and other emergency responders to conduct one tabletop exercise, one functional exercise, and two full-scale exercises within a four-year period.
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Due to geographic location, schools have unique safety challenges. It is the responsibility of school principals and administrators to assess the threats and hazards most likely to impact their school, and to practice three basic functional drills, shelter-in-place, lockdown, and evacuation, as these drills relate to those threats and hazards. Some threats or hazards may require the use of more than one basic functional drill.
Schools shall conduct at least one safety-related drill per month, including summer months when school is in session with students. These drills must teach students three basic functional drill responses:
"Shelter-in-place," used to limit the exposure of students and staff to hazardous materials, such as chemical, biological, or radiological contaminants, released into the environment by isolating the inside environment from the outside;
"Lockdown," used to isolate students and staff from threats of violence, such as suspicious trespassers or armed intruders, that may occur in a school or in the vicinity of a school. Lockdown drills may not include live simulations of or reenactments of active shooter scenarios that are not trauma-informed and age and developmentally appropriate; and
"Evacuation," used to move students and staff away from threats, such as fires, oil train spills, lahars, or tsunamis.
The drills described in (b) of this subsection must incorporate the following requirements:
A pedestrian evacuation drill for schools in mapped lahars or tsunami hazard zones; and
An earthquake drill using the state-approved earthquake safety technique "drop, cover, and hold."
Schools shall document the date, time, and type (shelter-in-place, lockdown, or evacuate) of each drill required under this subsection (5), and maintain the documentation in the school office.
This subsection (5) is intended to satisfy all federal requirements for comprehensive school emergency drills and evacuations.
Educational service districts are encouraged to apply for federal emergency response and crisis management grants with the assistance of the superintendent of public instruction and the Washington emergency management division of the state military department.
The superintendent of public instruction may adopt rules to implement provisions of this section. These rules may include, but are not limited to, provisions for evacuations, lockdowns, or other components of a comprehensive safe school plan.
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Whenever a first responder agency notifies a school of a situation that may necessitate an evacuation or lockdown, the agency must determine if other known schools in the vicinity are similarly threatened. The first responder agency must notify every other known school in the vicinity for which an evacuation or lockdown appears reasonably necessary to the agency's incident commander unless the agency is unable to notify schools due to duties directly tied to responding to the incident occurring. For purposes of this subsection, "school" includes a private school under chapter 28A.195 RCW.
A first responder agency and its officers, agents, and employees are not liable for any act, or failure to act, under this subsection unless a first responder agency and its officers, agents, and employees acted with willful disregard.
This section governs school operation and management under RCW 28A.710.040 and 28A.715.020 and applies to charter schools established under chapter 28A.710 RCW and state-tribal education compact schools subject to chapter 28A.715 RCW to the same extent as it applies to school districts.
School maps required under RCW 28A.320.125(2)(j) must be made available to local and state first responder agencies in digital formats that:
Are interoperable with the software platforms in use by each local and state first responder agency that provides emergency services to the mapped school, without requiring such agencies to purchase software, obtain licenses or subscriptions, or incur any cost to access, view, or otherwise use the maps;
Conform to and integrate with security software platforms in use by the mapped school without requiring the purchase of additional software or payment of license fees to view or access the data; and
Permit printing, electronic distribution, and integration into interactive mobile and web-based platforms.
School maps must also include the following features:
Orientation to true north, a reference grid with X axis and Y axis coordinates, and a Z axis elevation values sufficient to support three-dimensional location referencing;
Accurate floor plans that are verified by the entity producing the school mapping data through an on-site physical walk-through of school buildings and grounds, and that are overlaid on aerial imagery of the facility grounds that accurately reflects site conditions as of the date of the on-site physical walk-through;
Site-specific labeling that corresponds to the physical layout of the school campus and that is consistent with on-site signage where such signage exists. Such labeling must identify permanent, fixed features necessary to support emergency response, sheltering, evacuation, and incident management including, but not limited to:
Interior features, such as rooms, hallways, stairwells, elevators, interior access points, and areas capable of lockdown or sheltering;
Exterior access, egress, and circulation features, such as building doors, gates, parking lots, emergency access routes, evacuation routes, assembly areas, and designated reunification areas;
Elevation-related features, such as multistory structures, roofs or elevated areas suitable for vertical evacuation, stair towers, ramps, and changes in grade relevant to flood or tsunami response;
Exterior structures and spaces, such as playgrounds, athletic fields, portable or modular buildings that are permanent or semipermanent, covered walkways, storage or utility buildings, and perimeter fencing or barriers; and
Safety, security, and critical infrastructure, such as fire alarm control panels, fire department connections, key boxes, automated external defibrillators, trauma kits, emergency call boxes, critical utility controls, security control points, and permanent or fixed hazards; and
Controls that prevent independent modification or updating of the school maps unless corresponding updates are made to the underlying school mapping data within the software platforms in use by every local and state public safety agency that provides emergency services to the mapped school.
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School mapping data are not subject to public disclosure and are exempt from disclosure under RCW 42.56.420.
All school mapping data must be collected, accessed, analyzed, aggregated, produced, transmitted, shared, used, modified, maintained, and stored within the United States.
The following information relating to security is exempt from disclosure under this chapter:
Those portions of records assembled, prepared, or maintained to prevent, mitigate, or respond to criminal terrorist acts, which are acts that significantly disrupt the conduct of government or of the general civilian population of the state or the United States and that manifest an extreme indifference to human life, the public disclosure of which would have a substantial likelihood of threatening public safety, consisting of:
Specific and unique vulnerability assessments or specific and unique response or deployment plans, including compiled underlying data collected in preparation of or essential to the assessments, or to the response or deployment plans; and
Records not subject to public disclosure under federal law that are shared by federal or international agencies, and information prepared from national security briefings provided to state or local government officials related to domestic preparedness for acts of terrorism;
Those portions of records containing specific and unique vulnerability assessments or specific and unique emergency and escape response plans at a city, county, or state adult or juvenile correctional facility, or secure facility for persons civilly confined under chapter 71.09 RCW, the public disclosure of which would have a substantial likelihood of threatening the security of a city, county, or state adult or juvenile correctional facility, secure facility for persons civilly confined under chapter 71.09 RCW, or any individual's safety;
Information compiled by school districts or schools in the development of their comprehensive safe school plans under RCW 28A.320.125, to the extent that they identify specific vulnerabilities of school districts and each individual school, and all school mapping data collected, accessed, analyzed, aggregated, produced, transmitted, shared, used, modified, maintained, or stored under section 3 of this act;
Information regarding the public and private infrastructure and security of computer and telecommunications networks, consisting of security passwords, security access codes and programs, access codes for secure software applications, security and service recovery plans, security risk assessments, and security test results to the extent that they identify specific system vulnerabilities, and other such information the release of which may increase risk to the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of security, information technology infrastructure, or assets;
The system security and emergency preparedness plan required under RCW 35.21.228, 35A.21.300, 36.01.210, 36.57.120, 36.57A.170, and 81.112.180; and
Personally identifiable information of employees, and other security information, of a private cloud service provider that has entered into a criminal justice information services agreement as contemplated by the United States department of justice criminal justice information services security policy, as authorized by 28 C.F.R. Part 20.