Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) on Wednesday announced a bi-partisan school safety plan for schools in the Lone Star State. The plan was crafted after Abbott held a three-day roundtable with victims, parents, educators, lawmakers, law enforcement and policy experts, to discuss how to strengthen safety in schools.
“This plan is a starting point, not an ending place,” Abbott said in a statement. “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.”
Gov. Abbott's School and Firearm Safety Plan includes:
• Criminal Justice Division in the Office of the Governor will provide $70 million in grants and the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018 will provide an additional $40 million in grants to help implement the plan. Abbott will also work with the Texas legislature to find an additional $30 million for this initiative.
• Immediately increasing law enforcement presence at schools by hiring retired law enforcement officers and military veterans for school security.
• Training more school marshals, increasing funding for school marshals and increasing the number of school marshals that can be appointed at each school.
• Removing the firearm storage requirement for school marshals who are in direct contact with students, revamping marshal training requirements to focus more time on firearms training and requiring marshals to undergo an annual refresher course.
• Providing active shooter and emergency response training by better preparing campus security to respond to active shooter. The Texas School Safety Center will partner with the I Love You Guys Foundation to provide training in the Standard Response Protocol and the Standard Reunification Method for school personnel.
• The Texas Education Agency (TEA) will work with school districts to prioritize $62.1 million in new federal funding toward immediate school safety improvements, including school hardening, increased law enforcement patrols, implementation of mental health programs, and other recommendations discussed in this plan.
• The School Safety and Security Committee should be required to discuss the expansion of patrol zones to include the school district with local law enforcement; hold meetings at least three times a year; periodically provide updates to the school board; and schools should be required to notify parents if a significant threat to students’ safety occurs.
• Providing mental health evaluations to identify students at risk of harming others and expand access to Texas Tech Health Sciences Center’s Telemedicine Wellness Intervention Triage & Referral (TWITR) Project.
• Increasing Mental Health First Aid training during summer 2018.
• The Texas School Safety Center will partner with SIGMA Threat Management to deliver training on Behavioral Threat Assessment to school personnel.
• Expanding Crime Stoppers operations and launch an awareness campaign for school employees and students to encourage the reporting of tips related to school crime.
• Increasing the use and awareness of DPS’ “iWatch Texas” reporting system to enable and encourage parents, students, and teachers to easily report potential harm or criminal activity directed at school students, school employees, and schools.
• Increasing the number of fusion centers in Texas to improve law enforcement’s ability to identify, process, and resolve potential threats that appear on social media.
• Including charter schools in the same school safety requirements and options as Independent School Districts.
• Creating a statewide case management system to provide magistrates immediate access to critical information and to speed the timely reporting of court records for federal background checks.
• Encouraging the Texas Senate and House leaders to issue an interim charge to consider the merits of adopting a red flag law allowing law enforcement, a family member, school employee, or a district attorney to file a petition seeking the removal of firearms from a potentially dangerous person only after legal due process is provided.
• Mandating a 48-hour reporting period to close gaps in federally mandated background checks.
• Strengthening The Safe Firearm Storage Law and promoting the use of gun locks.
• Making it mandatory for gun owners to report when their firearms are lost or stolen within 10 days.
Recommended
Santa Fe will immediately receive $1 million to Santa Fe ISD through the School Emergency Response to Violence (SERV) program:
• Deploying crisis response counselors to beet immediate mental health needs.
• Assisting Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) efforts to provide a long-term behavioral health response.
• Ensuring First Responders have mental health resources.
• Providing additional counselors to ISDs in the Santa Fe area.
• Providing highly-trained counselors to Santa Fe ISD for the upcoming school year.
• Coordinating long-term community mental health efforts.
The Dallas Independent School District live streamed the press conference, where the plan was unveiled:
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