I want to tell you something that does not get covered enough. Something that actually worked.

Florida has over 4,000 public schools. More than 2.4 million students walk through those doors every day. And in the years since Parkland, the state has done something that no other state in the country has fully replicated. It built a school safety system from the ground up, and it made it state law. Not a suggestion. Not a recommendation. State law.

Here is what that looks like.

Every public school in Florida is now required to have a minimum of one armed school safety officer. Not a recommendation. Every school. Florida also has a See Something Say Something tip line that students, teachers, and parents can use to report threats anonymously. Since Parkland, Florida has used red flag laws and trespass protection orders more than 25,000 times. More than any other state in the country.

But the piece that I believe is the most important is this: Florida became the first state in the country to launch a statewide threat assessment portal. Every single threat assessment done in any K through 12 school in Florida is now uploaded to that portal. That means patterns can be identified. That means a student who raises concerns in one district can be flagged if they move to another. That means nothing falls through the cracks the way it fell through the cracks in Parkland, where law enforcement had been to the shooter's home more than 40 times and received repeated tips that he wanted to become a school shooter.

What makes Florida different is not just that these programs exist. It is that every school district is doing it the same way. Same process. Same instruments. Same forms. When safety protocols are left to individual schools or individual districts to figure out, you get inconsistency. You get some schools that are genuinely protected and others that are not. Florida said no to that. Florida said every child in this state deserves the same standard of safety, and then it passed the laws to make that happen.

I say this not because Florida has solved the problem. The problem is not solved. But what Florida has built is a model. It is proof that this kind of systemic change is possible. It did not happen because of politicians deciding on their own that it was important. It happened because of families who refused to let their grief be forgotten. Families who showed up. Who testified. Who made trip after trip and meeting after meeting until the laws changed.

That is how it gets done everywhere. Florida shows that it can be done.

Every state in this country can have a threat assessment portal. Every state can require armed safety officers in every school. Every state can have a tip line that students actually trust and use. The question is whether the parents, the school boards, and the legislators in those states decide that it is a priority.

If you live in a state that does not have these protections, you now know they are possible. You know what to ask for by name. And you know that other parents, in the most painful circumstances imaginable, already fought for this and won.

That is not a small thing. That is proof.

One thing to do this week

See how your state compares. The new School Safety Dashboard launches March 26th with real-time data, works on any device, and makes it easy to compare schools and districts side by side. Always free.

For Alex. And for all of them.

Max Schachter