Iowa school districts would be required to adopt policies to discipline students who are violent or make threats of violence under a bill passed Wednesday by the Iowa Senate.

House File 604 creates new requirements for schools to report and discipline violence and threats of violence in the classroom.

If a student threatens or commits violence in school, administrators would be required to notify the parents of the student within 24 hours. The school would also be required to notify the parents of any student who was threatened or hurt.

School boards would be tasked with adopting a discipline policy for the school district. Disciplinary actions would escalate in severity if students repeatedly act violently or threaten violence.

The Iowa Department of Education will create model disciplinary policies that school districts may choose to adopt.

The department reported 63,667 instances of students being removed from classrooms in the 2021-22 school year. Of those, nearly 30,000 involved violence.

“It protects our teachers, it protects our kids," said Sen. Molly Donahue, D-Cedar Rapids. "It makes sure that there’s some clarity around behavior in school.”

The bill allows the state ombudsman to investigate complaints from school employees about violent incidents. The ombudsman would report their findings to the department and the Board of Educational Examiners but would protect the identity of the individual who made the complaint.

The nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency released a fiscal note on a previous version of the bill, noting that the office of the ombudsman was not equipped to handle thousands of new investigations into school violence. An entry-level ombudsman employee can review about 400 cases a year.

The Senate voted unanimously to pass the legislation Wednesday. The House will need to pass the Senate's amended version before it can be signed into law.

Iowa has introduced several new programs in recent years to address violence in schools.

The Legislature in 2020 passed a grant program for schools to create "therapeutic classrooms" — a separate space where students may receive extra support for emotional, social or behavioral needs after they are removed from their primary classroom. That same bill created guidelines for when teachers may clear a classroom.

Last year, Gov. Kim Reynolds allocated $100 million of federal funding to prevent school shootings. The funds will be used to conduct vulnerability assessments on schools, provide active shooter training, hire additional staff at the Department of Public Safety and create new pathways to report and monitor threats of violence.

Reynolds announced an app in March where students and parents can anonymously report tips related to school safety.

Katie Akin is a politics reporter for the Register. Reach her at kakin@registermedia.com. Follow her on Twitter at @katie_akin.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Iowa Senate passes bill to address school violence, threats