Florida Lawmakers Take a Look at Security, Safety at Israeli Schools

Florida Lawmakers Take a Look at Security, Safety at Israeli Schools

A group of Florida lawmakers toured schools in Tel Aviv, Israel, to look at their security and safety measures.

  • By Jessica Davis
  • May 29, 2019

A group of Florida lawmakers toured a 600-student middle school in Tel Aviv on Monday, taking a look at the school safety and security measures used in Israel in hopes of bringing some ideas home to the U.S. According to reports, every school in the country has high levels of security.

The middle school’s security included fences, a system of coordinated security and fast response times.

Israeli law requires every school campus to have a six-foot high fence with a single point of entry, not including emergency exits.

Rep. Chris Sprowls, who is in line to be the next Speaker of the House, wants to look into creating a single point of entry for every Florida school.

“What I saw today was a very controlled environment, where you had one area of ingress and egress from the school. Once a student arrives at school, we visited a middle school here in Tel Aviv, that gate is secured,” Sprowls said.

Schools in Israel face different threats than American campuses, but lawmakers said they learned a lot that they could take home with them.

Parkland representative Lauren Book asked questions about age-appropriate emergency training.

 “We’re talking about three and four-year-olds knowing how to access a bomb shelter,” Book said. “What does that mean, what does that look like? That is a part of life here.”

According to Rep. Randy Fine, Israeli schools work to address student mental health problems early.

“Over here, they’re not afraid to call out bad behavior. Part of what we saw with [the Parkland shooter] was a culture of trying to look the other way, and that was entirely preventable had government done the right thing in advance. They don’t have those issues over here,” Fine said.

The school security measures the Florida lawmakers learned about in Israel have kept the country from experiencing a serious attack on a school since the early 1970s.

About the Author

Jessica Davis is the Associate Content Editor for 1105 Media.

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