ATLANTA – State Representative Valencia Stovall (D-Lake City) today commented on House Bill 614, also known as the Landon Dunson Act, which passed the Georgia House of Representatives on Wednesday, February 24. HB 614 is Rep. Stovall’s first bill to receive a vote in the House and will now go to the Senate for consideration.
“This bill will have a positive impact for our most vulnerable students and their teachers, and it was wonderful to have the support of my fellow House members on the passage of this legislation,” said Rep. Stovall. “The need for video cameras is not a Democratic, Republican or Independent issue; it crosses all party lines. We worked diligently for more than a year meeting with children’s advocacy groups, teacher unions, the Department of Education, local principals, school board members, superintendents, disability groups, school resource officers, students, counselors, lawyers, and anyone who had an interest in the legislation. What we heard affirmed that there have been cases of abuse from students to teachers, from teachers to students and from students to students, and the Landon Dunson Act addresses the safety concerns in addition to providing opportunities for instructional support in the special needs classrooms across Georgia.”
The Landon Dunson Act would install video monitoring camera equipment in self-contained school classrooms that provide special education services as a safety measure. Participation from local schools would be voluntary and only with the consent of the parents of the children in the classroom, while access to the footage would be strictly limited to school administrators for educational and safety monitoring purposes. The Department of Education would have final approval of the local school’s that choose to opt-in to the program, but each individual school would be responsible for providing their own video monitoring equipment. The Landon Dunson Act was originally proposed during the 2015 legislative session in response to concerns of alleged abuse in classrooms that provide special education services.
For more information on the Landon Dunson Act, please click here.