Bill Text: NJ A4069 | 2024-2025 | Regular Session | Introduced
Bill Title: Requires State Police to maintain 24-hour hotline for receiving anonymous tips regarding potential threats to school safety and security.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Republican 2-0)
Status: (Introduced) 2024-03-14 - Introduced, Referred to Assembly Public Safety and Preparedness Committee [A4069 Detail]
Download: New_Jersey-2024-A4069-Introduced.html
Sponsored by:
Assemblywoman NANCY F. MUŅOZ
District 21 (Middlesex, Morris, Somerset and Union)
Assemblywoman MICHELE MATSIKOUDIS
District 21 (Middlesex, Morris, Somerset and Union)
SYNOPSIS
Requires State Police to maintain 24-hour hotline for receiving anonymous tips regarding potential threats to school safety and security.
CURRENT VERSION OF TEXT
As introduced.
An Act concerning the reporting of school safety threats and supplementing chapter 2 of Title 53 of the New Jersey Statutes.
Be It Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:
1. a. The Division of State Police in the Department of Law and Public Safety shall maintain a 24-hour toll-free hotline for receiving anonymous tips, by means of telephone or text messaging, regarding potential threats to school safety and security. The hotline shall allow students, parents, school staff members, and the public to anonymously report information about unsafe, suspicious, potentially harmful, dangerous, or criminal activities in schools, or the threat of those activities including, but not limited to, incidents of violence, assaults, suicide threats, and bullying. The Division of State Police shall establish methods and procedures to ensure that the identity of the reporting parties remains unknown to all persons and entities, except in instances where the reporting party voluntarily discloses the individual's identity and verifies that the individual's identity may be shared with law enforcement officers and school officials.
b. The Division of State Police shall, as appropriate, share information received through the hotline with the applicable local law enforcement agencies and the superintendent of schools or the chief school administrator of a nonpublic school in order to facilitate prompt investigation and intervention.
c. The Division of State Police, in consultation with the Department of Education, shall ensure that information about the hotline is distributed to all public and nonpublic schools in the State for dissemination to students and their families.
2. This act shall take effect on the first day of the third month next following the date of enactment.
STATEMENT
This bill requires the Division of State Police to maintain a 24-hour toll-free hotline for receiving anonymous tips, via telephone or text message, regarding potential threats to school safety and security. The purpose of the hotline is to allow students, parents, school staff members, and the public to anonymously report information about unsafe, suspicious, potentially harmful, dangerous, or criminal activities in schools, or the threat of those activities, including, but not limited to, incidents of violence, assaults, suicide threats, and bullying. Under the bill, the identity of the person who reports information to the hotline is to remain unknown, except when the reporting individual voluntarily discloses the individual's identity and verifies that the individual's identity can be shared with law enforcement officers and school officials.
The bill requires the State Police to share information received through the hotline with the applicable local law enforcement agencies and the superintendent of schools or the chief school administrator of a nonpublic school in order to facilitate prompt investigation and intervention. Under the bill, information about the hotline is to be distributed to all public and nonpublic schools in the State for dissemination to students and their families.
