Sec. 14. (a) Each school operated by a school corporation shall establish a safe school committee. The committee may be a subcommittee of the committee that develops the strategic and continuous school improvement and achievement plan under IC 20-31-5. Each committee may include at least one (1) member who is a member of the support staff of the school or school corporation career and technical education school.

     (b) Each school operated by a charter school shall establish a safe school committee. A charter school in operation on July 1, 2023, shall comply with this subsection not later than July 1, 2024.

     (c) The safe school committee shall actively participate in and assist with the development of the school safety plan.

     (d) The department of education, the school corporation’s or charter school’s school safety specialist or specialists, and a school resource officer, if one (1) is employed by the school corporation or charter school, shall provide materials and guidelines to assist a safe school committee in developing a policy for a particular school that addresses the following issues:

(1) Implementation of the school safety plan.

(2) Addressing outside and internal threats to the physical safety of students, faculty, staff, and the public, including unsafe conditions, crime prevention, school violence, bullying and cyberbullying, criminal organization activity, child abuse and child sexual abuse, mental health and behavioral health, suicide awareness and prevention, and other issues that prevent the maintenance of a safe school.

(3) Addressing the professional development needs for faculty and staff to implement methods that decrease problems identified under subdivision (2).

(4) Identifying and implementing methods to encourage:

(A) involvement by the community, families, and students;

(B) development of relationships between students and school faculty and staff; and

(C) use of problem solving teams.

     (e) The guidelines developed under subsection (d) must include age appropriate, research based information that assists school corporations or charter schools and safe school committees in:

(1) developing and implementing bullying and cyberbullying prevention programs;

(2) establishing investigation and reporting procedures related to bullying and cyberbullying; and

(3) adopting discipline rules that comply with IC 20-33-8-13.5.

     (f) In addition to developing guidelines under subsection (d), the department of education shall establish categories of types of bullying incidents to allow school corporations to use the categories in making reports under IC 20-20-8-8 and IC 20-34-6-1.

     (g) The materials and guidelines provided under subsection (d) must include the model educational materials and model response policies and reporting procedures on child abuse and child sexual abuse developed or identified under IC 20-19-3-11.

As added by P.L.150-2023, SEC.15.