Community leaders address school safety at forum

Jul. 14—More than 150 were in attendance for the School Safety Forum co-hosted by Palestine Independent School District and State Rep. Cody Harris (R-Palestine) Wednesday at Palestine High School.

Superintendents from Anderson, Cherokee, Henderson, Navarro, Hill, Freestone and Kaufman counties joined school police, members of area law enforcement, state and local elected officials to discuss procedures and protocols to prevent and respond to school shootings.

"We were extremely pleased and humbled to be included in dialogue so important to public education," said PISD Superintendent Jason Marshall. "The diversity of educators as well as law and emergency agencies represented today provided state agencies and elected officials with valuable insight into what is needed by school leaders to address school safety. Thanks once again to Representative Harris for including the district in creating a forum for the necessary dialogue to take place to provide the safest and best educational experience possible for students."

"A huge thanks to the legislators, administrators and community members that came to Palestine ISD to discuss the crucial topic of school safety," said PISD School Board Member Davi Killion Ingram. "I am grateful for their willingness to hear our needs and for sharing information about their plan and allocation of funding toward making our schools safer. There is nothing more important than the safety of our children."

Guest speakers for the event included Rep. Harris; Representative Dr. Greg Bonnen (R-Friendswood); U.S. Congressman Jake Ellzey via Zoom; Nim Kidd, the chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management; Kathy Martinez-Prather, Ph.D, the director of the School Safety Center; and Mike Morath, Texas Education Agency Commissioner of Education.

Communication among agencies in a crisis was a key topic mentioned during the forum.

"In every incident that this nation has ever responded to, communications has been the number one problem," Kidd said.

His suggested solution is a public safety radio system that can communicate in every part of this state and between multiple agencies.

"We cannot operate if we cannot communicate and that is something I think you very much have to take to heart and start investing in radio systems so that we can communicate and talk to each other," Kidd said.

Thorough safety plans were another key area of discussion.

"I will tell you, we talk a lot about plans," Kidd said. "I've been fortunate to work on a lot of plans over the years. I'll tell you, we write some really good plans, but a plan that is not written, is a fantasy. A plan that is written and not trained, is a work of fiction. A plan that is not exercised, will be forgotten. And a plan that is not funded, is just futile. You cannot just write a plan and put it on the shelf. You have to plan, train, exercise, evaluate and repeat. This has got to be something we continuously do, not until we get it right, but until we cannot get it wrong. That is how important this work is."

During Morath's address, he said you can have a perfectly planned safety system of locked doors and windows that is defeated by an adult who props it open with a rock because they are carrying stuff in and out.

"This safety is not just about upgrading hardware, it's also about upgrading humans and battling complacency," he said.

With the Uvalde investigation still ongoing, Morath said TEA is focusing on three systemic components:

—Incident response

—Facilities/Access Control

—Behavioral Threat Assessment Protocol.

According to Morath, some actions already underway include:

—Expanding technical assistance to schools systems in partnership with TXSSC & ALERRT;

—Updating rules related to required preparedness drills to improve alignment with best practices;

—Evaluating school safety staffing models to improve best practice recommendations;

—Supporting immediate local safety audits, in conjunction with TXSSC;

—Establishing rules for minimum facility requirements focused on external access control and incident response;

—Providing a procedures guide for reviewing faculties to determine compliance with new rules;

—Establishing a data collection from school systems on the amount of capital upgrades necessary to comply with the new rules;

—Providing recommended best practice framework on daily school performance management procedures related to access control.

"It's not about perfection, it's about improving," Morath said.

The four-hour event also included a panel discussion as well as a question and answer session.

In June, following the mass shooting in a Uvalde elementary school in May, Gov. Greg Abbott directed the Texas Education Agency and the Texas School Safety Center to provide strategies and tools to school districts that will further enhance security measures. The TEA and TxSSC released directives last week to improve safety and security of public schools before the start of the coming school year.

TEA is now directing schools to conduct exterior door safety audits and to review or, if necessary, update access control procedures. Those procedures include conducting exterior door sweeps at least once a week to ensure doors are closed and locked while instruction is being conducted, officials said.

Districts are also required to conduct a targeted safety audit before the start of the school year. The audit, designed by TxSSC, includes about 50 questions to be considered for each instructional facility, with roughly half of the questions related to campus procedures and the other half related to the campus physical plant, according to education agency officials.

Other measures to be completed before the start of the school year include scheduling all mandatory drills, ensuring all campus staff including substitutes are trained on their specific campus safety procedures, and ensuring all threat assessment team members, who are responsible for conducting individualized assessment of the person of concern, are trained.

Schools must also convene a safety and security committee to review the district's multi-hazard emergency operations plan and active threat plan, it said.

Many of the schools in Anderson County and surrounding area began safety assessments at the end of May after the incident in Uvalde.

School districts will need to report compliance by Sept. 9, officials said. For items not in compliance by that date, TEA said it will compile information and submit it to the Texas Legislature to request funding as a measure to help districts reach requirements. Separately, TEA is working on a grant process to also ease financial burdens, officials said.