Florida school safety

School mapping requirements & grants in Florida

Yes. Florida requires standardized digital emergency-response mapping for every public and charter school, field-verified by a physical walk-through and built to open in the software responders and schools already use, with no extra software to buy and no fee to view (Fla. Stat. 1013.13).

Florida requires standardized digital emergency-response mapping data for every public and charter school, field-verified by walk-through and built to be compatible with the software used by first responders and the school's own security systems, and integrated with the statewide Alyssa's Alert panic-alert system. The 2023 law (HB 301, Ch. 2023-99) created a state-funded School Mapping Data Grant Program in the Department of Education to pay for it.[1]

Why this matters in Florida

Why do Florida schools need responder-ready maps now?

Florida already pays for this through the School Mapping Data Grant Program, yet many of its 4,229 public schools still rely on data that was never walk-through verified or built to open in a responder's own software. Acting now means accurate, Alyssa's-Alert-integrated mapping is in responders' hands before the next October 1 floor-plan update, not a generic diagram they meet for the first time during a live incident.

The mandate

What does Florida law require?

Law
Florida CS/CS/HB 301 (2023), Chapter 2023-99 - Emergency Response Mapping Data; codified as the School Mapping Data Grant Program[2]
Statute
Fla. Stat. 1013.13 (School Mapping Data Grant Program); with integration required under Fla. Stat. 1006.07(4) (Alyssa's Alert mobile panic alert system)[1]
Compliance
HB 301 effective July 1, 2023 (Chapter 2023-99, signed May 18, 2023). The grant program is voluntary-application based with no single fixed compliance date in statute; Fla. Stat. 1013.13 requires district superintendents to submit revised floor plans and other relevant documents by October 1 of each year for facilities modified in the preceding year. (The related Alyssa's Alert mobile panic alert system under 1006.07 was required to be in place by the start of the 2021-2022 school year.)[1]

What schools must provide: Schools must provide standardized emergency response 'school mapping data' for each public school (including charter schools) to the school district and to local law enforcement and public safety agencies. The data must be in an electronic/digital format; include site-specific labeling that matches the structure of school buildings (room labels, hallway names, external door or stairwell numbers), hazard/utility/emergency-equipment locations, grounds features, an aerial overlay, gridded coordinates, and be oriented true north; and be verified for accuracy by a physical walk-through of school buildings and grounds. It must be compatible with software platforms used by local, state, and federal public safety agencies that provide emergency services AND with the security software platforms in use by the specific school, in both cases without requiring those agencies or districts to purchase additional software or pay a fee to view or access the data. The entity producing the data must provide it to the school district and to local first responders. Under Fla. Stat. 1006.07(4)(g), these digital maps must be integrated with the centralized mobile panic alert system ('Alyssa's Alert') to support emergency response.[1]

The specification

What does the statute specify, clause by clause?

Florida publishes a 9-point specification for school mapping data in Fla. Stat. 1013.13(2)(b), plus the electronic-format requirement in 1013.13(2)(a) and the annual floor-plan submission duty in 1013.13(1). Each line below is a separate statutory subdivision, cited so you can check it against the source yourself. This is the list to hold any proposal against, ours included.[3]

  1. Fla. Stat. 1013.13(1)
    Each district school superintendent must give the law enforcement agency and fire department with jurisdiction over each educational facility a copy of the floor plans and other relevant documents, and must submit revised floor plans by October 1 of each year for any facility modified during the preceding year.
  2. Fla. Stat. 1013.13(2)(a)
    School mapping data must be provided in an electronic or digital format to assist first responders in responding to emergencies at schools.
  3. Fla. Stat. 1013.13(2)(b)1
    Be compatible with the software platforms used by local, state, and federal public safety agencies that provide emergency services to the specific school, without requiring those agencies to purchase additional software or pay a fee to view or access the data.
  4. Fla. Stat. 1013.13(2)(b)2
    Be compatible with the security software platforms in use by the specific school, without requiring local law enforcement agencies or school districts to purchase additional software or pay a fee to view or access the data.
  5. Fla. Stat. 1013.13(2)(b)3
    Be in a printable format and, if requested, in a digital file format that can be integrated into interactive mobile platforms in use.
  6. Fla. Stat. 1013.13(2)(b)4
    Be verified for accuracy by a walk-through of school buildings and grounds.
  7. Fla. Stat. 1013.13(2)(b)5
    Be oriented true north.
  8. Fla. Stat. 1013.13(2)(b)6
    Be overlaid on current aerial imagery.
  9. Fla. Stat. 1013.13(2)(b)7
    Contain site-specific labeling that matches the structure of school buildings, including room labels, hallway names, external door and stairwell numbers, and the locations of hazards, critical utility locations, key boxes, automated external defibrillators, and trauma kits.
  10. Fla. Stat. 1013.13(2)(b)8
    Contain site-specific labeling that matches the school grounds, including parking areas, athletic fields, surrounding roads, and neighboring properties.
  11. Fla. Stat. 1013.13(2)(b)9
    Be overlaid with gridded x and y coordinates.

A single LiDAR and drone capture produces one dataset that serves both the printable, labeled 2D map this specification describes and a live 3D digital twin of the same campus, so a district is not buying the compliance artifact and the operational tool twice. See the buyer-side questions to ask any provider.

Funding

What grants help Florida schools pay for mapping?

Florida districts often combine state and federal programs to fund first-responder mapping, AI threat detection, and emergency communications. We list only currently open or recurring programs; amounts and deadlines change, so confirm each at its official source before applying.

Federal programs (available nationwide)

COPS School Violence Prevention Program (SVPP)Closed
Funding FY26: up to $73,000,000 total available; maximum federal share of $500,000 per award; approximately 200 awards anticipated; 36-month period of performance starting October 1, 2026. A local cash match of at least 25 percent is required unless a waiver is requested and approved. Approximately $1,000,000 was reserved for microgrants of up to $100,000 for rural, tribal, and low-resourced school districts. These are the closed FY26 figures, not a forecast for FY27.
Funds school security technology and equipment, including systems that speed law-enforcement notification during an emergency. (U.S. Department of Justice - Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office))
Most recent cycle closed. Confirm the next cycle at the official source.Listing: 16.710Full program details[4]
STOP School Violence Program (BJA) - Students, Teachers, and Officers Preventing School ViolenceClosed
Funding FY25 solicitation (the most recent on record): award ceiling $2,000,000, award floor $0, 79 awards anticipated. UNVERIFIED: the total program funding figure and the Category 1 / Category 2 split. The Grants.gov synopsis records total program funding as $2,000,000 against 79 awards at a $2,000,000 ceiling, which is internally inconsistent and appears to be a data-entry artefact, and the previously published ~$83,000,000 total and category breakdown could not be re-confirmed on a primary source in this pass. Treat the per-award ceiling as the reliable figure.
Funds evidence-based violence prevention: threat assessment, anonymous reporting, and law-enforcement coordination (cannot fund cameras, locks, or fencing). (U.S. Department of Justice - Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), Office of Justice Programs)
Most recent cycle closed. Confirm the next cycle at the official source.Listing: 16.839Full program details[5]
Project SERV (School Emergency Response to Violence)Rolling
Funding Awards are sized to the incident and vary widely; there is no published per-award cap and no match requirement. The ten published FY2026 awards range from $25,434 (Lower Kuskokwim School District, AK) to $439,630 (Anchorage School District, AK). FY2025 awards ranged from $12,989 to $1,252,000. Two tiers exist, both at the Secretary's discretion and subject to appropriations: Immediate Services (emergency short-term assistance) and Extended Services (longer recovery).
Funds short-term recovery services, including security measures, after a school experiences a violent or traumatic event. (U.S. Department of Education - Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE), Safe and Supportive Schools)
Deadline: No fixed deadline, event-driven. LEAs and IHEs apply on a rolling basis after a qualifying traumatic event by contacting the Department of Education. The program now lists separate contacts for school-violence SERV and natural-disaster SERV; get the current contact from the official program page rather than a cached address.Listing: 84.184SFull program details[6]

See full details on each federal funding program, including eligibility, deadlines, and how each can apply to responder-ready mapping.

How schools comply

How do Florida schools go from paper plans to a map responders can actually use?

Florida's bar is specific: gridded, true-north, site-labeled data that integrates with Alyssa's Alert and works without forcing responders to purchase anything. Ark's single-day LiDAR scan produces a live 3D twin that meets that walk-through-verified standard and connects through RapidSOS to the vast majority of US 911 centers, so the maps are already where responders are. Static PDFs go stale the moment a building changes, and they cannot be shared live with arriving units.

Ark Strategic builds a live 3D digital twin of a campus from a LiDAR and drone scan, often completed in a single day though larger campuses can take longer, with every room, exit, utility shutoff, AED, and access point labeled. Responders reach it two ways, neither of which requires anything new to install: through RapidSOS, the platform already connected to the vast majority of US 911 centers, or in any web browser, since the twin runs in the cloud. Either way, your 911 center and on-scene units see the campus inside tools they already have.

A flat floor plan tells responders where the walls are. A digital twin shows them where to go. The platform and setup are bundled into one deployment, often grant-funded, so there is no separate software line item for the district. See how the K-12 platform works.

FAQ

What else do Florida districts ask about school mapping?

Does Florida require school safety mapping?
Yes. Florida requires standardized digital emergency-response mapping for every public and charter school, field-verified by a physical walk-through and built to open in the software responders and schools already use, with no extra software to buy and no fee to view (Fla. Stat. 1013.13). Florida requires standardized digital emergency-response mapping data for every public and charter school, field-verified by walk-through and built to be compatible with the software used by first responders and the school's own security systems, and integrated with the statewide Alyssa's Alert panic-alert system. The 2023 law (HB 301, Ch. 2023-99) created a state-funded School Mapping Data Grant Program in the Department of Education to pay for it.
What does Florida CS/CS/HB 301 (2023), Chapter 2023-99 - Emergency Response Mapping Data; codified as the School Mapping Data Grant Program require?
Schools must provide standardized emergency response 'school mapping data' for each public school (including charter schools) to the school district and to local law enforcement and public safety agencies. The data must be in an electronic/digital format; include site-specific labeling that matches the structure of school buildings (room labels, hallway names, external door or stairwell numbers), hazard/utility/emergency-equipment locations, grounds features, an aerial overlay, gridded coordinates, and be oriented true north; and be verified for accuracy by a physical walk-through of school buildings and grounds. It must be compatible with software platforms used by local, state, and federal public safety agencies that provide emergency services AND with the security software platforms in use by the specific school, in both cases without requiring those agencies or districts to purchase additional software or pay a fee to view or access the data. The entity producing the data must provide it to the school district and to local first responders. Under Fla. Stat. 1006.07(4)(g), these digital maps must be integrated with the centralized mobile panic alert system ('Alyssa's Alert') to support emergency response.
When must Florida schools comply?
HB 301 effective July 1, 2023 (Chapter 2023-99, signed May 18, 2023). The grant program is voluntary-application based with no single fixed compliance date in statute; Fla. Stat. 1013.13 requires district superintendents to submit revised floor plans and other relevant documents by October 1 of each year for facilities modified in the preceding year. (The related Alyssa's Alert mobile panic alert system under 1006.07 was required to be in place by the start of the 2021-2022 school year.). Florida CS/CS/HB 301 (2023), Chapter 2023-99 - Emergency Response Mapping Data; codified as the School Mapping Data Grant Program. Districts should confirm current timelines with their state education agency.
What grants help Florida schools pay for safety mapping?
Florida districts may be eligible for programs including Project SERV (School Emergency Response to Violence). Eligibility, amounts, and deadlines vary by program and should be confirmed at each program's official source.
What is critical incident mapping?
Critical incident mapping is the practice of giving first responders accurate, current digital maps of a building, with rooms, exits, utility shutoffs, AEDs, and access points labeled and shareable in real time, so police, fire, and EMS can navigate an unfamiliar campus during an emergency.

New to the terms? See the school safety mapping glossary for plain-language, sourced definitions, or the national FAQ for the questions districts ask most.

Sources

Where does every claim on this page come from?

We do not ask you to take our word for any of this. Each numbered citation above links to its primary government source below, with the date we last verified it. Programs and deadlines change, so confirm current rules at the source. How we verify.

  1. Florida Statutes 1013.13 (School Mapping Data Grant Program), with Fla. Stat. 1006.07(4) (flsenate.gov) and HB 301 / Ch. 2023-99 (flhouse.gov) verified 2026-06-23
  2. Florida Statutes 1013.13 (School Mapping Data Grant Program), with Fla. Stat. 1006.07(4) (flsenate.gov) and HB 301 / Ch. 2023-99 (flhouse.gov) verified 2026-06-23
  3. Florida Legislature - Fla. Stat. 1013.13, Submittal of facility construction design documents to jurisdictional public safety agencies; School Mapping Data Grant Program (official statute text) verified 2026-09-01
  4. COPS Office - School Violence Prevention Program (official program page) verified 2026-09-01
  5. Bureau of Justice Assistance - Available Funding (current open opportunities listing) verified 2026-09-01
  6. U.S. Department of Education - Project SERV (official program page) verified 2026-09-01
Compare across state lines

What do the states bordering Florida require?

School safety mapping varies by state line. See where the states next door stand.

See how the rest of the South region compares on school safety mapping.

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