DALLAS -- In the wake of a mass school shooting in Santa Fe, Texas, and three day-long roundtable discussion sessions, Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday unveiled the first phase of his plan to improve school safety in the state.
- 40-page document outlines school safety recommendations
- Funding will be immediately directed to addressing school safety
- Mental health resources and firearms safety are included in the recommendations
Speaking to reporters in Dallas, Abbott said his recommendations are outlined in a 40-page document called the Governor’s School and Firearms Safety and Action Plan.
Abbott said he’ll immediately call for $120 million in state funds to be directed toward improving schools safety. Additional funds will be needed, he added.
Improving school security
Some of the recommendations outlined in the document include greater law enforcement presence at schools, and training more teachers and staff members to serve as “school marshals.” That would involve arming teachers on campus.
Abbott said programs to teach staff members to serve as marshals could start as soon as this summer.
Abbott also discussed hiring retired law enforcement members and veterans to provide security at schools.
School-hardening
The governor next touched on a strategy he has referred to as "school-hardening." That would include limiting entrances and exits in order to keep tabs on who is gaining access to the buildings.
Abbott is also recommending schools install active shooter alarms that would sound differently than fire alarms. Abbott said that, in the case of Santa Fe High School, the fire alarm may have caused more deaths because it prompted students to leave their classrooms and enter hallways, leaving them vulnerable to the shooter.
Preventing tragedy
Abbott said some of the recommendations focus on prevention, such as removing threatening students from the classroom and expanding campus crime stoppers programs.
Abbott discussed the upcoming launch of a new app called “iWatchTexas” that will enable parents and students to quickly report threats.
Abbott also discussed deploying more fusion centers, the focus of which is scouring social media for potential threats.
Enhancing firearms safety
Despite his well-known pro-gun stance, the governor outlined several recommendations for enhancing firearms safety. Those include mandating a 48-hour reporting period for adjudications affecting the right to legally purchase and possess firearms. That’s opposed to the current 30-day period and would be extended to protective orders and family violence convictions.
Other firearms safety recommendations include strengthening storage laws by mandating they be safely locked away when someone 17 years or younger is present in the home, voluntary use of gun locks and mandatory reporting of lost or stolen guns.
“The plan is a starting point, not an ending place,” Abbott said. “It provides strategies that can be used before the next school year begins to keep our students safe when they return to school. This plan will make our schools safer and our communities safer.”
Texas State Teachers Association president Noel Candelaria released the following statement in response to Abbott's plan on Wednesday afternoon:
“The Texas State Teachers Association strongly objects to Gov. Greg Abbott’s proposal to arm more teachers, the so-called school marshals, as a part of his plan to address gun violence in schools. Teachers are trained to teach and to nurture, not double up as security guards. Answering a National Education Association survey conducted earlier this year, 82 percent of teachers and other school employees throughout the country, including 63 percent of gun owners, said they would not carry a gun to school. They know they are no match for heavily armed, suicidal intruders intent on killing.
“Sixty-nine percent of educators said arming teachers would not be effective against gun violence, and 64 percent even said they would feel less safe if their colleagues were allowed to have guns at school.
“The governor’s proposals to strengthen physical security measures at schools, to hire more professionally trained security guards and to expand mental health programs are steps that can save lives. But are temporary grants and federal funding , as the governor has proposed, enough to pay for them? Will the governor follow through with a plan for sufficient state funding when the grants expire or the federal money dries up? Or will he continue to under-fund public education and force budget-strapped school districts and local property taxpayers to bear an even greater burden?
“We don’t doubt that Gov. Abbott is as heartbroken as any other Texan over the recent tragedy at Santa Fe High School. But, tragically, children and educators have been dying in school shootings throughout the country for years. Why did it take a mass shooting in his own backyard in an election year to finally force the governor to respond with a sense of urgency?”
Greg Hansch with the National Alliance on Mental Illness-Texas chapter will join Capital Tonight at 7 p.m. to discuss the governor’s call for increasing mental health services in schools.