The Trump administration broke the law when it disbanded a school safety board created by Congress to advise federal agencies on preventing and responding to school shootings, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security dismantled the Federal School Safety Clearinghouse External Advisory Board, which held its first meeting in October, as part of a broad, Inauguration Day directive that applies to all external advisory committees that work with the agency.
“I’m asking President Trump and [Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem] to immediately bring the safety board back because it is the law,” Schumer said at a Jan. 26 news conference covered by New York news station PIX 11.
The 26-member board included school superintendents, experts on school safety and child well-being, civil rights and disability rights advocates, and parents of children who died in school shootings. It was codified into law as part of the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act to advise federal agencies on school safety concerns and what content should be included on SchoolSafety.gov.
President Donald Trump created that clearinghouse of best practices during his first term following the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. Parkland survivors pushed for the creation of the clearinghouse to make school safety research more accessible for schools and policymakers. The board’s members included Tony Montalto, whose daughter Gina died in the Parkland shooting.
“No matter how somebody feels about guns, we agree that more needs to be done to keep kids in school safe,” said Cameron Kasky, a survivor of that shooting who spoke alongside Schumer at the news conference.
Members of the board said it was disassembled through a memo that applied to all of the agency’s external advisory boards, including those that handle issues like cybersecurity, as part of the agency’s commitment to “eliminating misuse of resources and ensuring that DHS activities prioritize our national security.” That memo invited members to reapply, but did not say if or when boards would be reconstituted.
The Homeland Security press office did not respond to questions from Education Week following Schumer’s news conference.
“Effective immediately, the Department of Homeland Security will no longer tolerate any advisory committee[s] which push agendas that attempt to undermine its national security mission, the President’s agenda or Constitutional rights of Americans,” the agency’s press office said in a statement to Education Week last week following the initial decision to dismantle the board.
