2022 EDUCATION EDITION
Signed into law in May 2019, Senate Bill 11 set a school security and safety allotment at a base level of $9.72 per pupil for school districts across the state to be used for campus security measures and mental health initiatives, though districts sized like Fort Bend ISD receive a greater per-pupil amount. Experts said the allotment allows for greater exibility in safety and security spending compared to school bonds. Bond and state funding: what’s the difference?
going to be starting in the fall without any signi cant changes to the system.” This comes as the Texas Education Agency told districts June 30 of safety audit requirements to be completed before the 2022-23 school year. While the two state committees work on recommendations address- ing school safety, mental health, social media, police training and rearm safety, Brown said funding is a priority for preventing future campus violence. Signed into law in May 2019, Senate Bill 11 set aside a base school security and safety allotment of $9.72 per pupil for school districts across Texas to be used for campus security measures and mental health initiatives. Brown said the allotment allows for greater exibility in district safety and security spending compared to school bonds— but it is not enough. “We would like to see something around $150 per student or more,” he said. “Especially because that [fund- ing] comes with some exibility at the local level.” Still, despite moving in a positive direction for school safety, gun regu- lation remains the key priority to pre- venting future mass campus shootings, Figueroa said. “You might be able to harden a school; you might be able to address the important needs of mental health, but regulating guns is something we could do tomorrow,” he said. “We could put some regulations and some back- ground checks and other restrictions like red- ag laws on guns that could go into e ect pretty quickly. That would reduce the odds of another massacre at a more e ective rate.”
• INFRASTRUCTURE: Improving school infrastructure, including installing physical barriers and purchasing and maintaining security cameras and equipment • OFFICERS: Paying for peace ocers and school resource ocers • PROGRAMS : Training and planning school safety programs; treatment programs for adverse childhood experiences; programs to manage emergencies through mental health personnel. Providing programs related to suicide prevention, intervention and postvention State funding in Senate Bill 11 can go toward:
• VEHICLES: Safety and security-focused capital items for vehicles • FACILITY UPGRADES: Safety and security-focused school building improvements, extra furnishings and equipment, including cameras and door locks • IMPROVEMENTS: New buildings, rebuilds, additions and renovations that target security-focused capital projects Voter-approved bond funding can go toward:
SOURCES: FORT BEND ISD, RAISE YOUR HAND TEXAS, TEXAS EDUCATION CODE COMMUNITY IMPACT NEWSPAPER
buses. All safety items in that bond were completed. In 2018, following the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shoot- ing, which left 17 dead, and the Santa Fe High School shooting, which left 10 dead, FBISD convened a safety advi- sory committee with students, sta , parents, security experts and commu- nity members. The committee recom- mended additional security measures to add to the master plan, said Jason Burdine, a former FBISD board of trustees vice president and former board member for the Texas School Safety Center, a research center at Texas State University that provides school safety research and training to school districts. “The most critical part about starting a safety and security mindset for the district is gathering your community together and having a conversation about what safety looks like for that community,” Burdine said. “For all communities and all districts, school safety means di erent things—and
people have di erent expectations.” FBISD voters approved another bond worth $992.6 million in Novem- ber 2018—$14.9 million, or 1.5%, of which was for safety and security. The district installed more than 7,300 oor- mounted door locks in classrooms, fencing around all elementary portable classrooms, more security cameras, and an improved identi cation system expected to be complete by fall, said Bart Rosebure, FBISD emergency man- agement coordinator. Another bond is also expected this November, Bassett said. If passed by voters, it would include new security cameras, police vehicles, more oor- mounted door locks, and weapons and response kits for FBISD police. Even with a portion of the antic- ipated bond geared toward safety and security, FBISD parents such as Susan Tosounian, a parent of one mid- dle schooler and high schooler, still have concerns. “I don’t think safety was as major a concern at the elementary school level
because school o cers and monitor- ing ... [has] been more prevalent in the middle school and high school level,”
Tosounian said. State solutions
Finding solutions for greater school safety and security has gone beyond just the local districts, however, as Texas grapples with how best to pre- vent future violence. Luis Figueroa, policy director of Every Texan, an Austin-based non- partisan nonpro t policy institute that analyzes the state’s social ser- vices safety net, said Abbott did not do enough. He said the decision on June 1 for two special legislative commit- tees to investigate school safety and mass violence following the shooting in Uvalde was the “bare minimum” the state could have done. “I think that the massacre in Uvalde, the massacre in El Paso and the one in Santa Fe would have justi ed a special session on this issue,” Figueroa said. “Because now, essentially, schools are
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SUGAR LAND MISSOURI CITY EDITION • AUGUST 2022
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