State Rep. Cody Harris, PISD host School Safety Forum
Jul. 9—Palestine Independent School District and State Rep. Cody Harris (R-Palestine) are hosting a School Safety Forum for area school administrators and personnel next Wednesday, July 13.
"If the tragedies in Uvalde and Santa Fe have taught us anything, it's that no school is immune to this kind of evil happening, so we better be as prepared as possible," said Harris. "As the investigations into Uvalde continue to uncover what went wrong, I thought it was important to bring together all of the school districts that I represent with other state leaders and agencies to provide our schools with every state resource available. On top of that, we want to learn about both state and federal regulations that may be preventing our educators from adopting or implementing the best school safety policies. We will never be able to legislate away evil. But together we can make sure our schools have the ability to stop this kind of evil before it steps through the doors."
Superintendent Jason Marshall said Palestine Independent School District is honored to host this Summer School Safety Forum with Rep. Harris.
"We look forward to receiving and sharing safety information with our elected officials and other school districts in our area in preparation for the upcoming school year," Marshall said.
During this four-hour event, there will be panel discussion as well as a question and answer session. Guest speakers will include Rep. Harris; Representative Dr. Greg Bonnen (R-Friendswood); and U.S. Congressman Jake Ellzey via Zoom.
Other special guests will include Nim Kidd, the chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management; Kathy Martinez-Prather, Ph.D, the director of the School Safety Center; Tom Maynard, a member of the State Board of Education; and Rep. Keith Bell (R-Forney).
Superintendents from Anderson, Cherokee, Henderson, Navarro, Hill, Freestone and Kaufman counties have been invited to participate. School police and members of local law enforcement have been invited as well.
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.
This is a private meeting and is not open to the public.
