BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Buffalo Public School students are dealing now not only with the reality of a racially-motivated mass shooting in their own community, but a second attack aimed at children in Texas less than two weeks later.

We The Parents Co-Chair and Buffalo Equity Coalition member Sam Radford said their fears are real and warranted.

"I'm extremely concerned about the trauma being piled on the trauma," Radford said.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said she had an emergency meeting with state police Wednesday morning to ensure they're doing everything they can to ease concerns of families.

"I want state police patrols visiting our schools, doing daily check-ins, every single day from today until the end of the school year," she said.

State police will be going into schools in their patrol areas and coordinating with sheriffs and city police outside of their jurisdiction. Meanwhile, Buffalo Public Schools said it will have police and security presence around schools indefinitely.

"I think having security in a school is responsible," Radford said. "I heard a young lady say yesterday that they protect money in banks better than they do children."

But he is far more disappointed with other safety measures. Specifically, Buffalo schools are essentially going on lockdown, requiring any visitor to obtain prior approval to enter a building.

"Don't tell me in this moment that if I'm concerned about my children, I've got to call in advance to be able to see my child. That's not what I want to hear right now," Radford said. "That's just not what you should be telling parents right now."

The parent leader also has questions about the state Education Department's choice not to administer the U.S. History and Government Regents exam due to concern one of the questions could compound trauma caused by the violence in Buffalo.

"It just don't make sense to me that you had a question in there that was that insensitive that you feel like may trigger people in Buffalo and now all of the sudden we not going to take the exam in the whole state. You've got to be more transparent than that," he said.

Radford said he worries more about the Buffalo district than any other, in part because of the institutional segregation and poverty in the city, which he believes exacerbated disadvantages for those students during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now he said decision-makers, often not from that same community, are proposing more solutions that could put those kids at a disadvantage and continue to perpetuate the conditions that made Buffalo a target in the first place.

"Their parents are essentially powerless because they're the poorest parents in all of Western New York with the least amount of resources with the least capacity to advocate for themselves because they're trying to survive day-to-day and a bunch of well-meaning middle class and wealthier people are making decisions for them and they're not making the right ones," he said.

Buffalo Teachers Federation President Phil Rumore said he does agree with the lockdown, noting it's not permanent and there's serious concern about copycats right now.