ATLANTA — Legislators generally are in a celebratory mood when their bills pass, but Georgia state Sen. Bill Cowsert’s voice shook Monday as he discussed legislation designed to prevent school shootings seven months after an armed student killed four people at a Barrow County high school.

“This is not a happy bill to present,” said Cowsert, R-Athens, who sponsored the school safety bill in his chamber.

He asked members to stand for a moment of silence for the two 14-year-old students, Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, and two teachers, Richard Aspinwall and Cristina Irimie, who were shot to death Sept. 4 at Apalachee High School.

House Bill 268, which passed the Senate 45-9, would require public schools to create plans addressing the behavioral health needs of students and “identify, assess and mitigate” potential threats made by students. The legislation is a priority of House Speaker Jon Burns, who conducted a series of meetings with educators, parents and students throughout the state about what schools needed to make them safer.

“There’s a lot of bills we deal with in here ... but there’s nothing like worrying about the safety of your children and your grandchildren,” Cowsert said.

Under the bill, the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency would be responsible for discerning what constitutes a credible threat. The agency would also provide training to schools to help develop and implement those plans.

Throughout the legislative process, parents — especially those of Black and Muslim boys — shared their concern that their children could be unfairly targeted and would have their words, actions or even drawings perceived as more threatening than intended.

“In DeKalb County, we had a young person who was over the age of 13, who made what, looking at the words alone, would constitute a terroristic threat,” said state Sen. Kim Jackson, a Democrat from Stone Mountain. “However, when you pull back the curtain, we learned that that child had disabilities, that that child was diagnosed with autism (and) had clear cognitive diminishments.”

Jackson proposed an amendment that would require the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency to consider “the full context and circumstances surrounding” statements made, but it failed 25-29.

Cowsert said there would “not be a database kept with GEMA (the emergency management and homeland security agency) or anybody else.” However, language in the bill does permit an emergency alert response system that allows schools to report and monitor threats.

Names of the students who made threats would be included in the system, if the threat had been investigated and verified by local law enforcement and if the student had been evaluated by a social worker. Parents or students could petition for their removal from the system.

Information would only be available to designated people, which could include teachers, principals, school counselors and school resource officers. Each school would determine whether to forward that information to law enforcement, which would only be informed of certain students based on the type of threat.

The House bill was amended in the Senate to include language from three Senate bills that aimed to address school safety. The amendments would require local school systems to implement a panic alert system and require schools to quickly communicate about disciplinary problems with students transferring in from other schools. Another amendment would allow juveniles to be tried as adults for terroristic acts as well as for the charge of conspiracy to commit a number of violent crimes.

The bill was sent back to the House, which was expected to agree with the changes made in the Senate, paving the way for final passage.

In addition, a few other elements of the bill include that:

—It could trigger a visit from a social worker for a student who suddenly stops attending school without notice;

—It would institute an anonymous platform where anyone could report students who may pose a threat to school, staff, students or themselves;

—And it would install mental health coordinators who would connect students to resources in the community for support and behavioral health treatment.

Democrats in the House and Senate had hoped to tie the bill to an effort to enact gun safety measures.

State Sen. Elena Parent, a Democrat from Atlanta, proposed that the state Department of Education, in collaboration with GEMA, develop information and other resources regarding the safe storage of firearms. She said she believed her amendment is “part and parcel of what’s already in the bill.”

Cowsert said there was “a lot of common sense” in her proposal but asked her to wait so they could work on separate legislation.

The House passed House Bill 79, which would provide a tax credit to gun owners who purchase a locking storage device and other safety accessories, but it was amended to include a Senate bill that would provide an 11-day, sales tax-free holiday on guns.

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