NC H1007

State Board of Education shall develop or identify an academically rigorous elective course on firearms and ballistics sciences for high school students, offered at the discretion of local school boards.

Course curriculum must emphasize safe and responsible handling of firearms, understanding firearm designs and their evolution, and use ballistics science to stimulate interest in physics, thermodynamics, chemistry, mathematics, metallurgy, engineering, and other STEM subjects.

Local boards of education offering the course shall prohibit live ammunition and fully assembled or fully functional firearms in classroom settings, with an exception for law enforcement officers acting in official capacity.

State Board of Education must establish the course of study by December 31, 2019, and accept curriculum development grant proposals by March 31, 2020, with completed curriculum due by August 1, 2020.

$100,000 appropriated from the General Fund to the Department of Public Instruction for the 2019-2020 fiscal year to fund grants for curriculum development.