School safety in South Texas: Caller-Times hosts community panel discussion

Olivia Garrett, Corpus Christi Caller Times

June 28, 2022 at 8:18 PM·2 min read

The mass shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, left many concerned about school safety. At the Caller-Times, we're dedicated to finding out what's being done to fix issues, whether those solutions are working and if they can be duplicated.

The Caller-Times will host a panel of school leaders, decision-makers and stakeholders to explore what South Texas is doing now to make schools safe and what else can be done.

The panel will air on the Caller-Times' Facebook page at 7 p.m. Thursday, June 30.

More: 'Hug your loved ones': How Uvalde residents united by grief, faith after shooting

The Caller-Times will host a discussion panel with school leaders, decision-makers and stakeholders on what South Texas is doing now to make schools safe and what else can be done. The panel will air at 7 p.m. Thursday, June 30, 2022, on the Caller-Times' Facebook page.

How to watch and submit questions

The discussion will be pre-recorded without a live audience, but community members are invited to submit questions ahead of time for inclusion in the panel.

To suggest a question, email olivia.garrett@caller.com.

In addition to streaming on Facebook on Thursday, the panel will subsequently be available on the Caller-Times' website at Caller.com.

Who is participating?

The panel is composed of a variety of viewpoints from small and large school districts in the Coastal Bend. Panelists include a school district superintendent, a teacher representative, a school board president, a safety expert, a high school teacher and a school district police chief.

Why now?

This conversation comes a month after a shooter killed 21 people at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde.

The massacre sparked discussion and action at schools across the country, including in the Coastal Bend, but it isn't the first time Texas has been shaken by a mass shooting. The state's history of mass killings stretches to 1966, when a gunman killed 14 people and injured 31 others from a tower at the University of Texas at Austin. Before Uvalde, the most recent school shooting in Texas came in 2018, when 10 people were killed at Santa Fe High School.

Other attacks over the years from across the country, from Sandy Hook to Parkland, loom large in the minds of families and educators everywhere.

In Texas, schools are required to have a safety and security committee, as well as a minimum of two lockdown drills annually. But additional safety measures vary by school district.

A Texas Department of Public Safety patrol vehicle is seen in front of Garcia Elementary School in this August 2018 file photo.

The Caller-Times outlined some of those measures in an article about emergency planning at Corpus Christi ISD and other area schools.

The panel discussion aims to continue pushing the conversation forward.

Olivia Garrett reports on education and community news in South Texas. Contact her at olivia.garrett@caller.com. You can support local journalism with a subscription to the Caller-Times .