HB550: HB550 Education; promise scholarship accounts; require participating schools to prepare school safety plans that meet certain requirements

Georgia's Promise Scholarship Account program (O.C.G.A. § 20-2B-23) lets students use state education savings accounts to attend participating private schools. Currently that law sets out various requirements for participating schools but does not require them to have a school safety plan. This bill adds a new requirement: each participating school must prepare a school safety plan that meets the same standards already required of public schools under O.C.G.A. § 20-2-1185. The bill does not create new safety plan standards itself; it simply extends the existing public school safety plan requirements to private schools that take part in the scholarship program. The bill also repeals any conflicting laws, a standard closing provision.

• Adds a new subsection to Georgia's Promise Scholarship Account law (O.C.G.A. § 20-2B-23) requiring participating schools to prepare a school safety plan.
• Ties the safety plan requirement to the existing standards public schools must already follow under O.C.G.A. § 20-2-1185.
• Applies only to private schools that choose to accept Promise Scholarship Account students, not to all private schools statewide.
• Repeals any existing state laws that conflict with this new requirement.

Private schools that participate in Georgia's Promise Scholarship Account program, the students and families who use those accounts to attend such schools, and the state education savings authority that oversees the program.

Families using Promise Scholarship funds would know their chosen private school must follow the same safety planning rules as public schools, such as plans for emergencies, potentially affecting which schools choose to keep participating in the scholarship program.

• Section 1 amends O.C.G.A. § 20-2B-23 by adding subsection (h), requiring each participating school to prepare a school safety plan.
• The new subsection requires the plan to meet the same requirements set for public school safety plans in O.C.G.A. § 20-2-1185.
• Section 2 repeals any conflicting laws, a standard closing provision with no independent substantive effect.

1. 2025-02-24House Second Readers (House)
2. 2025-02-21House First Readers (House)
3. 2025-02-20House Hopper (House)

• Eric Bell (D, HD-075)Primary sponsor
• Steven Sainz (R, HD-180)
• Rick Townsend (R, HD-179)
• David Wilkerson (D, HD-038)
• Patty Stinson (D, HD-150)

• school safety
• school vouchers
• Promise Scholarship
• private schools
• education policy