LANSING, Mich. — The Michigan Legislature on Thursday pushed through a roughly $37.3 million supplemental budget bill to benefit Oxford Community Schools and to set up statewide school safety grants days after a shooting in Texas took the lives of 19 elementary students and two teachers.
The legislation expanded funding for Oxford schools from $6.8 million to $9.8 million and added funding for $15 million in statewide grants for school security assessments and $12.5 million for statewide grants for critical school mapping.
The spending bill, sponsored by Rep. Pamela Hornberger, a Republican, is headed to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's office next for her signature.
Hornberger said in a statement that the funding for Oxford was a result of discussions with the school district regarding its needs moving forward.
"We carefully listened to the needs expressed by Oxford and worked with them to provide the tools they need to recover from the lasting impact of the tragedy that students, staff and the building itself withstood," said Hornberger, who chairs the House Education Committee.
The House and Senate's unanimous approval Thursday morning came as Oxford High School students staged a walkout to protest the lack of interventions following the shootings at their own school and at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, this week.
The Detroit News reported Thursday that Oxford schools has been testing an artificial intelligence-based gun detection software that, when paired with surveillance cameras, can alert authorities to the presence of a gun carried in plain sight within seconds.
Michigan Republican lawmakers were criticized Wednesday by their Democratic colleagues after blocking efforts to force action on bills that would require safe gun storage and background checks for gun purchases.
Some elements of the spending plan passed Thursday were bumped up from the Legislature's annual budget plan for immediate action so the money wasn't held up in potentially months of budget negotiations.
The legislation's initial purpose was to resolve lingering questions over financial penalties Oxford Community Schools could suffer because of missed days and testing difficulties in the wake of the Nov. 30 shooting at Oxford High School.
The money would essentially hold the northern Oakland County school district harmless for any missed days or low test scores that would usually prompt financial ramifications or affect teacher evaluations in other schools.
Earlier this month, an Oxford schools spokeswoman said Oxford High School expected it would miss the state's instructional day requirement for Michigan schools by 24 days and other schools in the district were short by an average of 11 days.
Michigan rules require schools to achieve a floor of 75% attendance and miss no more than six to nine school days a year. Additionally, yearly state assessments such as the Michigan Merit Examination can be used to decide whether a student should be retained a year or used to evaluate teachers.
The bill includes a total of $9.8 million for Oxford schools targeted toward mental health and safety resources, legal services, a third-party review of the shooting and repairs to the high school building. It also indicates the district's annual assessments should not be used to make decisions regarding retention or teacher evaluations.
About $15 million would go toward grants for districts and nonpublic schools to contract with an outside party to perform security and safety assessments, with a cap of $2,000 per school building.
Another $12.5 million would go to schools wishing to create detailed maps of their buildings that could be used by law enforcement and rescue personnel when responding to a critical incident at the school.
