Brittany Kelley
KYLE — Following the September 2025 arrest of a Hays High School student for possessing a weapon on campus, fellow Hays CISD student Owen Marino, 16, began a petition for change.
This act was not surprising to Marino, as he stated the reason he transferred from HHS to Live Oak Academy was to remove himself from incessant bullying and violence.
“Back at Jack C. Hays and, currently, at Live Oak, most of my classmates, in fact, do not feel safe at school. With the current events going on in America, they tell me they’re afraid of either getting injured or even worse, death, and maybe even ending up in the hospital in critical condition,” said Marino. “I believe students should not have to go to school in fear. That’s basically mental agony for nine hours, having to stress about whether you’re going to be injured or even killed in school.”
It was because of this that Marino launched a petition on www.change.org to encourage better safety precautions for students. The petition has since garnered 44 signatures and states that Marino wants “metal detectors, dog sweeps, and AI violence predictors that stop events before they happen to be in place for every single grade level … Our bags are checked for when we enter the stadiums for 2 hours football games, yet there are no procedures in place for a building where we spend over 8 hours a day.”
Marino stated that he learned of these safety measures by observing policies and systems in place at government facilities, where, oftentimes, metal detectors and security officers are present when entering the building. Additionally, he stated that schools in other states, such as Leon County, Florida, are working to implement metal detectors and drones to enhance safety.
The student also emphasized that the schools hold assemblies on safety and “make a bunch of promises of keeping these students safe, yet they never end up following [through],” such as placing school resource officers (SROs) at each campus, having sweeps in between class periods and monitoring each exit and entry. Marino stated that he would look for signs of these being implemented, as he took a bathroom break or went to the nurse during class, and would fail to ever see teachers or officers fulfilling these promised vows.
He also stated that there needs to be better training for teachers and SROs to ensure that student reports are being taken seriously.
“[When I was at HHS], there was a large fight, including around five, maybe six students. One of the SROs jumped in and they actually dropped their taser weapon [and] somebody picked it up,” explained Marino. “I [also would] keep hearing about students bringing knives, handguns. I’ve even seen on a student’s Instagram story that they brought a handgun in one of the restrooms at Jack C. Hays. That was later reported, but staff didn’t care until about a day later.”
Marino stated that prior to this year, he wasn’t listening or paying attention to the surrounding incidents and was unaware of what was happening in America. The most recent occurrence of the HHS student bringing a gun to school Sept. 4 was his awakening: “Enough is enough. We need to fix this right now.”
Ultimately, Marino shared that his goal is to push Hays CISD to improve safety for its campuses and students, whether this be upgrading glass to be bulletproof, finding additional funding for SROs, adding metal detectors and more.
The student hopes to bring his concerns and petition to Hays CISD Superintendent Dr. Eric Wright, as well as chief of security & safety Jeri Skrocki, prior to presenting at a Hays CISD Board of Trustees meeting.
To view the petition, visit bit.ly/48eUCD4.
