This bill adds a new section to chapter 28A.320 RCW and amends RCW 28A.320.125 and RCW 42.56.420 to require expanded safe school planning and the creation and maintenance of detailed digital school maps for use by local and state first responder agencies. It requires safe school plans to include specified safety policies and procedures, emergency mitigation/preparedness/response/recovery, provisions for students and staff with special needs, family-student reunification plans, training guidance, principal certification in the incident command system, guidance for involving local emergency responders in drills, procedures for informing substitutes and temporary employees about plans, and limits on trauma-uninformed live simulations in lockdown drills. The superintendent of public instruction may adopt rules to implement the section. The bill makes procedural and data-security changes: schools must conduct monthly safety-related drills (including three defined functional drills: shelter-in-place, lockdown, and evacuation) and document each drill; schools are encouraged to conduct specific tabletop, functional, and full-scale exercises within a four-year period; to the extent funds are available, districts must annually review and update plans with local emergency agencies, complete hazardous materials inventories, update training and evacuation information, and provide staff information on emergency supplies and notifications. When a first responder notifies a school of a situation that may require evacuation or lockdown, the responder must determine whether nearby schools are similarly threatened and notify them, and responders receive limited liability protection for acts or failures to act under that notification duty unless they acted with willful disregard. The bill establishes technical requirements and an exemption from public disclosure for school mapping data. Maps must be interoperable with first responder software and school security platforms without additional purchase or fees, permit printing and electronic distribution, be available in digital formats, include true north orientation, X/Y grid and Z elevation values, accurate floor plans verified by on-site walk-throughs and overlaid on current aerial imagery, and specified labeled interior and exterior features (doors, evacuation routes, assembly/reunification areas, multistory/elevation features, playgrounds, utilities, critical infrastructure, etc.). Controls must prevent independent modification unless underlying mapping data are correspondingly updated across agencies, all mapping data must be handled and stored within the United States, and school mapping data and other security-related records are added to the categories exempt from public disclosure under amended RCW 42.56.420. Some text of the bill was not included in the provided excerpts: a portion of the new section 3 begins mid-sentence in the materials and the complete statutory language and any enforcement mechanisms, penalties, or additional agency responsibilities that may appear elsewhere in the bill are not shown here.

If enacted, school districts and individual schools will need to create and maintain highly detailed, on-site-verified digital maps and expand their safe school plans, run and document more frequent drills (at least one safety-related drill each month, including when summer school is in session), ensure principals receive incident command training, and make sure substitutes and temporary staff get plan information. The maps must include many interior and exterior features, be overlaid on current aerial imagery, be interoperable with first responder systems without added access fees, be kept and handled within the United States, and will be exempt from public disclosure; however the requirement to actually create and maintain those maps depends on specific appropriations and some map content details in the bill text are not fully shown in the extracted material. The groups most affected are public school districts and school staff (who will face added tasks, documentation, and likely costs for on-site verification, mapping, training, and more frequent drills) and local and state first responder agencies (which will receive detailed, secured maps and must have compatible access). The public records exemption reduces the risk of sensitive facility data being publicly released but shifts responsibility onto schools and responding agencies to manage secure access and ensure maps are updated consistently; funding availability and some implementation specifics remain uncertain from the provided text.