As of March 30th, Illinois HB 4994 on threat assessment procedure has passed both the Illinois House of Representatives and the Senate. The bill, which includes an amendment to 105 ILCS 128/45 of the School Safety Drill Act, requires "that each year prior to the start of the school year, a school board shall file its threat assessment procedure and a list identifying the members of the school district's threat assessment team or regional behavior threat assessment and intervention team with (i) a local law enforcement agency and (ii) the regional office of education or, with respect to the Chicago school district, the State Board of Education. Effective immediately." HB 4994 is now awaiting the approval of the governor.

On April 16th, The New England Journal of Medicine released the article "Crossing Lines — A Change in the Leading Cause of Death among U.S. Children." The article explains that the leading cause of death among youths and young adults is death from injuries, and the leading cause of injury-related death has changed from motor vehicle crashes to firearm-related injuries. The article notes that while motor vehicle-related injury deaths dropped by nearly 40% (from 13,049 to 8,234) between 2000 to 2020, firearm-related injury deaths rose from 6998 to 10,186 between 2000 and 2020. The article then proceeds to discuss how "the crossing of these trend lines demonstrates how a concerted approach to injury prevention can reduce injuries and deaths — and, conversely, how a public health problem can be exacerbated in the absence of such attention."

There is still time to register for the Advanced Digital Threat Assessment class on May 3rd from 9:30 am-4:00 pm via Zoom. Building upon the Digital Threat Assessment class by Safer Schools Together, Advanced Digital Threat Assessment advances participants' understanding of finding and curating relevant digital information consistent with real-life digital threat assessment data gathering scenarios. Significant engagement and hands-on practice will take place as participants are assembled into investigative teams and given a true-to-life mock scenario. For more information and to register, click here.