As parents pick up their children for the first day of school this week, many are no doubt thinking: How safe is your child at school?
Texas lawmakers are pushing through several changes this year, from further enforcing the requirement to have armed guards at every public school to putting panic buttons in classrooms to increasing training for staff.
Many of the changes stem from House Bill 3, which Texas lawmakers passed last year in response to the Uvalde School massacre.
As Richardson ISD welcomes students back to class on Tuesday, Superintendent Tabitha Branum is thinking of all of her 37,000 students — including her little one.
“We have a fourth-grader in our school district, and when I think about safety, that’s very important to me,” she said. “I want to make sure every parent, student and staff member walks into our buildings knowing that we’ve done everything we could. We’ve been as proactive as we can to keep our students safe and minimize risk as much as possible.”
Their main focus right now is on training and repeating their safety drills.
“It’s not about doing a whole bunch of new things, it’s about getting good at the things we know are best,” she said. “We do these exercises four times a year and send a note home to our parents. Then when their kids come home, they know how to have the conversation with their child at home after this exercise.”
The school district continues to ensure that students receive comprehensive training during “I Know What to Do” days – an in-school training scenario for students and teachers aptly named to alleviate the fear and anxiety associated with the reality of what it will be like to go to school in 2024.
Richardson ISD
“I think that’s the balance that every school leader has to strike as we open a new school year. We want our schools to be a place where students can enjoy themselves,” Branum said. “But we also have to weigh whether we need to implement certain safety protocols to mitigate that risk.”
This school year, parents will notice several new safety requirements, including:
- A silent panic button in all classrooms that immediately connects to first responders.
- Efforts continue to equip all public school campuses with armed guards.
- Training certain district employees to identify mental health problems or substance abuse among students
- Provide the Texas Department of Public Safety, local police and first responders with a current map of school grounds
- Contact parents if violence occurs anywhere in the district
School districts are also required to conduct a drill each semester on the following topics: curfew, evacuation, security and shelter in place.
To keep track, the Texas Education Agency recently announced a new program called Sentinel. It allows the state to track threats, standardize security protocols across districts, and monitor which districts are complying with those requirements.
School security experts like Craig Miller — former Dallas ISD police chief who now works as a consultant — worry about whether districts can meet all of these new requirements, especially when it comes to staffing with armed guards. School districts use local police officers to staff high schools and middle schools, but finding even more officers to do the same job at many elementary schools has proven difficult.
“Because let’s face it, right now there are openings in every police department in the state of Texas,” Miller said.
Miller says some districts have requested waivers to use alternative methods such as arming teachers or hiring security guards, which in turn bring with them different standards.
“These fall under two different laws. One is called school marshal and the other is called guardian regulation. When teachers are armed, it’s important for parents to know if those teachers fall under guardian regulation or marshal regulation. Because the standards for each of those are a little bit different,” he said.
To meet the need for armed guards, security guards are deployed who are civilian and trained employees of the school district.
“Considering we’re going to see 9,000 schools that previously had no police or uniformed personnel, security companies are coming into that space. And that’s a game changer for some, because security companies often don’t have relationships with law enforcement,” Miller said.
In addition, hiring additional officers employed directly by police departments could create additional challenges for school districts.
“There are 1,025 public school districts in the state of Texas, but only about 350 of them have their own school district police departments. If you’re a school district police department and you’re the police chief, you report to the superintendent of schools,” Miller said. “So their mission can sometimes be viewed differently than an SRO that’s provided to the school district by the local municipality or the sheriff’s department. They come in and do their job as police officers, but they report to the sheriff or to the police chief. So they view their mission a little differently than school district police officers.”
Branum says Richardson ISD has been successful in staffing its elementary schools with trained campus security personnel.
“These are individuals who are hired by Richardson ISD as employees. They go through a very rigorous selection and testing process and then really rigorous training before they are appointed as campus safety officers. We are very fortunate that our board has approved a compensation plan that allows us to be very competitive,” she said.
This also involved considerable financial costs and investments.
“And as we know, the legislature has not fully funded that mandate. And so our board has had to make decisions that there are some things that we might like to invest more in,” Branum said. “And as we know, the legislature has not fully funded that mandate. And so our board has had to make decisions that there are some things that we might like to invest more in.”
When it comes to panic alarms, Miller says parents should ask their school how they plan to implement them effectively.
“What happens if the police are notified when a child encounters a panic system? It is important for parents to understand that these systems are being installed in classrooms,” he said.
In addition, there are calls for the state to pay more attention to the mental health of students.
“We want to put in metal detectors or bulletproof shields, but if we put more emphasis on the mental health of kids with these issues, I think we would be much more successful,” Miller said. “I think that’s one of the things we don’t put enough emphasis on: counseling. I think unless you’ve been in school for a long time, you don’t really understand what’s going on in a lot of these kids’ lives and the role social media plays in their lives.”
Branum agrees.
“We’ve definitely seen a growing need within our student body for that additional social-emotional support,” she said. “So we’re making sure that as a system we can support our parents as they help their children have those experiences.”
She said her district has even applied for funding to hire additional social workers. Two state-certified social workers will be assigned to each of the four high school catchment areas.
“To help both students and parents and have access to the wraparound services that we know we need when a child is in crisis or when that need arises,” she said. “Now, again, we would love additional funding and investment from the state and from Austin and our legislators. But we know we can’t wait for that. So we’re trying to be very innovative and find solutions to make sure that that help is available when our students need it.”
Miller said that given the many new requirements and the fact that schools are still working to comply with those guidelines, parents should use upcoming parent-teacher nights to ask questions and familiarize themselves with their school’s emergency plan so everyone is on the same page.
“If there is a curfew or a lockdown and the doors are locked, parents need to understand that they are not allowed into the school in such a case,” he said. “If such a situation occurs in a school, parents need to be notified. Ask your teacher in what situations a parent will be notified. What does the school expect from me as a parent if there is a crisis? Where will their reunification place be?”
