Arizona bill would require schools to notify parents of threats

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(The Center Square) - The Arizona Legislature is considering a bill that would require schools to notify parents and staff about serious threats.

On Monday, the Senate Rules Committee approved House Bill 4109. The bill now goes to the full Senate for deliberation.

The House passed the bill by a vote of 35-17 earlier in March, with seven representatives abstaining. Six Democratic state representatives joined Republicans in voting for it. Rep. Lydia Hernandez, D-Glendale, is sponsoring HB 4109.

The bill mandates schools to notify parents and employees within 24 hours after “life-threatening violence, threats of life-threatening violence or threats that involve a deadly weapon or dangerous instrument.”

Schools would have to include information about what happened and how they responded to the incidents.

Law enforcement would need to be immediately notified after serious threats or violence occur at school, the bill says, adding that schools must confiscate deadly weapons and hold them until police arrive.

HB 4109 would require school districts to submit an annual report on the number of lockdowns, shelter-in-place events, evacuations, weapon-related incidents, law-enforcement-referred incidents and a safety policy summary.

On top of this, the bill would require school districts to create a formal public safety policy that includes procedures for emergencies and designates the superintendent as the person in charge.

Under the bill, district superintendents and school board members may be charged with a misdemeanor if they don't follow the rules. 

Superintendents could be charged if they failed to notify parents, contact law enforcement or follow established procedures when serious violence or threats occur.

School board members could face criminal charges if they don’t adopt a public safety policy and if they retaliated against students, their parents, a district employee or anyone else who reported a violation of HB 4109.

Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne told The Center Square that Arizona public schools “have really serious problems.”

“Schools that don’t yet have police are playing Russian roulette with the lives of the students and the teachers and the staff,” he said.

In 2025, there were 500 recorded incidents of students bringing a gun to school, Horne told The Center Square.

Arizona is lucky that it has not had a tragedy, the superintendent noted.

Horne said since he took over as superintendent of public instruction in 2023, “the number of police in schools” has increased from 190 officers to 565.

“We need to do everything we can to protect the safety of our students, teachers [and] staff. A minimal step in that direction is to have the schools report so the public knows when there’ve been incidents of people bringing guns to schools or threatening other people,” he said.

Horne said he has urged schools to allow the state Department of Education to “provide them with police officers.”

“We pay for the police officers," he said. "It doesn’t cost them anything."