Covenant-inspired fire alarm bill heads to TN Gov. Bill Lee's desk after Senate passage

The Tennessee Senate on Monday passed legislation to require all schools in the state to create new fire alarm policy, a bill backed by parents from The Covenant School following the deadly shooting last March.

The legislation, SB 1679/HB 1644, which would require all schools to develop emergency procedures to determine the cause of an activated fire alarm, now heads to Gov. Bill Lee's desk. The Senate passed the bill 32-0.

The House initially passed the bill during the August special session last year, though the Senate declined to act on it, but it moved quickly to passage this year, with the House passing it again on Feb. 8 in a 97-0 vote. Covenant families have backed the bill and said confusion about the cause of a fire alarm during the March 27 school shooting led to death of 9-year-old William Kinney.

In a statement read in committee last August, William's mother Erin Kinney said many at Covenant initially believed the active shooter situation was a fire because of a blaring fire alarm that masked initial sounds of gunfire. William, line leader of his class, followed fire alarm protocol to lead his classmates out of the classroom ahead of the teacher, who was trained to sweep the classroom behind students in the event of a fire emergency.

“In the Covenant shooting, the fire alarm went off, and the natural response is to go out in the hallway and get out of the building," said bill sponsor Sen. Ferrell Haile, R-Gallatin. "Well, the shooter was in the hallway, waiting for those students to come out.”

The bill received bipartisan support on Thursday, though some Democrats have criticized what they see as an incremental step toward school safety while the Republican supermajority refuses to take up gun reform measures.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Covenant-inspired fire alarm bill headed to Tennessee Gov. Lee's desk