After Florida school shooting, Gov. Abbott plans to name-and-shame potentially unprepared Texas districts – By Lauren McGaughy & Eva-Marie Ayala (dallasnews.com) / Feb 21 2018
AUSTIN — One week after a gunman killed 17 people at a Florida high school, Gov. Greg Abbott says he wants to publish the names of Texas school districts that haven’t completed state-mandated safety checks.
“All of Texas grieves the tragedy that occurred in Parkland last week,” Abbott said in a prepared statement Wednesday. “Immediate steps must be taken to keep our students and communities safe, with the understanding that more will be expected in the future.”
Education Commissioner Mike Morath issued a statement saying he’s directed Texas Education Agency staff to begin full implementation of Abbot’s directives. “Our schools must always be a safe place for learning. Governor Abbott has identified specific steps that can help strengthen campus safety for all students,” Morath said in the statement.
Any school that has not completed its safety audit within 45 days should be listed online and in a press release from the Texas Education Agency, Abbott said. But teacher groups worried that publicizing potentially unprepared districts could make those schools a target.
“We are concerned that a move to publicly shame those districts that have not yet completed them merely points out potential targets to those who may wish to harm our kids and teachers,” said Monty Exter, a lobbyist and spokesman for the Association of Texas Professional Educators, the state’s largest group for teachers, administrators and other school staffers. “We applaud renewed efforts to make schools a safer place for students and staff. Both school districts and the state should certainly prioritize working together toward this goal.
“However, the state should focus on making sure schools have needed resources to provide safe environments and helping districts to complete school safety audits.”
The Dallas Morning News has reached out to Abbott’s office about ATPE’s concerns.
Since 2005, Texas has required public schools and community colleges to have emergency plans that include responding to both human and natural disaster threats. School employees must be trained in responses and schools must have related safety drills. A safety audit must be done at least every three years and be submitted to the Texas School Safety Center. The latest three-year cycle for schools started in September 2017.
“We work on plans throughout the three-year cycle,” Dallas ISD police chief Craig Miller said regarding the audit requirements. “It’s an ongoing process. With only having four people in emergency management [in DISD], you’re not going to get to all the schools and get it all accomplished in a short time.”
The audit, Miller described, is “a list of questions that they want to know about visitor managements, alarms, cameras — just generic things asking if you are in compliance. Either you have it or you don’t have it, but if you don’t have it, you document that. So the audit, it’s just designed to remind you to be judicious in trying to do everything you can to keep kids at schools safe.”
Experts say that overall, schools are safer than they used to be as overall crime has declined, including juvenile crimes.
From the 2007-08 school year to 2016-17, the number incidents on Texas public campuses involving prohibited weapons has dropped dramatically — from 561 to 289, according to the Texas Education Agency. But the number of incidents involving a firearm has increased slightly in that time — from 166 to 184.
After the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, former Gov. Rick Perry also called for districts to review their safety procedures. Schools across the nation increased measures at their elementary campuses, which typically had more lax measures.
“We had roughly 153 elementary schools when I came here, about a year before Sandy Hook,” Miller said about his time in Dallas ISD. “And less than 10 had a buzzer intercom system, where you can press a button and let someone into that campus. Within six months, every elementary school had that in place, and that’s a positive.”
The Sandy Hook shooting also led DISD to add peepholes for doors in 1,500 portables, install cameras in elementary schools and go to a card access entry system for employees, Miller said.
Over the years, districts have amped up security by increasing police presence on campuses; installing panic buttons; linking hallway camera feeds to police systems; and — in rare instances — even arming teachers.
Guns are banned on K-12 school grounds in most circumstances, but a Texas law authored by Rep. Jason Villalba, R-Dallas, allows teachers or other staffers to carry firearms if they train to be a campus marshal. Licensed gun owners can carry concealed firearms in most buildings at Texas’ public colleges and universities, with some exceptions.
Some school officials said they don’t have an issue with publicizing certain information.
McKinney schools spokesman Cody Cunningham said the Collin County district doesn’t have a problem with publishing a list of schools that received safety audits and dates for when those were completed.
However, he noted that district has been asked for dates of future security audits and lockdown drills.
“Certainly there’s a level of detail when it comes to school crisis communication plans and crisis response plans that districts are not comfortable releasing because we feel like it compromises the safety of our schools,” Cunningham said. “But providing a list of schools that successfully completed safety audits, we don’t see that as a bad thing.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has called for more security at public schools in the wake of the Florida shooting, telling Fox News on Wednesday, “we need to have armed policemen or law enforcement at our schools, or at least train people, teachers, to have the ability to defend so that if this happens we have the opportunity to stop the killing.”
Miller, DISD’s police chief, said similar calls for more school resource officers were made after the Sandy Hook shooting, only for additional funding never to materialize.
“I hear President [Donald] Trump talk about making school safety his No. 1 priority,” Miller said. “Sometimes when you do that, you have to put your money where your mouth is. There are things we need to be doing better that he — or the governor — might help with.
“If the state and federal government are truly committed, there are things that we can do.”
In addition to naming districts that may be unprepared, the governor said his office will be working with the Texas School Safety Center and Department of Public Safety to craft policy recommendations ahead of the 2019 legislative session.
These recommendations could include state intervention at districts deemed unprepared, increased safety requirements for charter schools, requiring schools to report threats to the state and new plans for security in portable buildings and at sporting events, according to the letter Abbott sent Wednesday to Morath.
The Texas School Safety Center, which is based out of Texas State University, already works with schools across the state to train them on the best safety measures for their campus and to offer research and technical assistance. It was created in 1999 by then Gov. George W. Bush.
Last week, center director Kathy Martinez-Prather said schools are constantly reviewing their security measures, particularly after well-publicized events like the tragedy in Florida. That means looking for ways to minimize access and increase training but also ways to help troubled students who might need help.
“It’s a complicated issue. Schools as a whole are still some of the safest places to send your kids,” Martinez-Prather said. “Not all school shootings make the news, but those that do give us the notion that schools are less safe than used to be because we are bombarded by those images.”
Staff writers Nanette Light and Corbett Smith contributed to this report.
