Just before Labor Day weekend, Gov. Greg Abbott released a School Safety Action Plan Summary that lists actions taken by school districts to harden campuses in the wake of the deadly Santa Fe Independent School District shooting in May.
“Elected leaders, community members, students, teachers, parents and everyday Texans all share the common goal of making schools a safe place for our children,” Abbott said. “Our goal is being realized as school districts across the state continue to put immediate and long term plans aimed at prevention and protection in place. While progress is being made, there is still much work to be done and I encourage everyone in Texas to continue the discussion surrounding school safety to ensure that we put in place measures that will benefit the safety and well-being of our state’s greatest resource — our children.”
Highlights from the summary include developments such as:
• 1,705 public school employees attended Mental Health First Aid training courses during June and July;
• The Texas Department of Public Safety expanded its“iWatchTexas” program to include school incidents as reported via mobile app, Internet or phone by students, teachers, parents and others in the statewide centralized system designed to provide law enforcement the opportunity to detect and prevent an attack;
• The Texas School Safety Center has worked with the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement to provide introductory school-based law enforcement, behavioral threat assessment and emergency operations plan development courses to more than 500 people;
• An additional 92 school marshals had been appointed, with 73 prospective marshals in the training process as of Aug. 17, tripling the number of trained and licensed school marshals; and
• The Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training program at Texas State University has provided direct training to nearly 1,300 police officers, firefighters, dispatchers, EMS personnel and others since May 18.
