Two new state laws sponsored by local legislators take effect July 1st

(Douglas P. Perkins / CC BY 3.0)

Tennessee Republican lawmakers approved a variety of new laws this year impacting that state’s public schools. They include two pieces of legislation sponsored by local senators.

The two new state laws will be taking effect on July 1st. One law, sponsored by Sen. Todd Gardenhire, looks to expand human trafficking training in schools.

The other law, sponsored by Sen. Mike Bell, will ensure school’s internet providers restrict student access to obscene materials from school computers.

“We have told vendors with this bill is that we don’t know how you’re going to do it. But you’re going to have to come up with a firewall to make sure that our students at our schools and Hamilton County and Bradley County, Max County, are not able to link to material that’s already illegal, The contracted provider they stand to they literally make millions and millions of dollars off these contracts with our state and so the consequences is they could lose that they could lose that business if they don’t comply,” said Bell.

Bell said this law is not about deeming material illegal, but restricting access to already illegal material.

“It was already in the statute that children in our schools are not supposed to be able to access pornography and obscene materials. I wanted to say that because I didn’t want it to get confused with a lot of other discussions that are going on right now inappropriate books or other materials. This is material that is already deemed inappropriate,” Bell said.

Sen. Bell said the law will also require each local board of education to establish a mechanism for parents to report any inappropriate material that remains accessible to students.