AG stresses school safety

McALLEN — Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott urged school districts to overhaul their security measures, more frequently perform drills and create anonymous tip lines to help promote school safety.

Abbott’s comments came just a few weeks after a 14-year-old student shot and injured four people at a Cleveland High School before turning the gun on himself.

The image of a shooter inside a school is “one of the most chilling images in our society,” Abbott said. “It’s an image we don’t want to see repeated in the state of Texas.”

Abbott urged school districts to create anonymous tip phone lines so students can report strange behavior among their peers or knowledge of planned attacks. He also urged districts to practice school safety drills each year, instead of every three years as required by law. (Check out the school safety toolkit, the school crime and discipline handbook and the school safety guide.)

McAllen schools spokesman Mark May said his district performs lockdown drills twice a year.

Daniel King, the new superintendent of PSJA schools, said he did not know how often those sorts of drills are performed in his district.

Abbott said the measures would help decrease likelihood of campus shootings and prevent chaos in case a shooting does occur.

“We must be prepared to do all we can in the event a situation like that does arise,” Abbott said.

Under state law approved two years ago, school leaders must develop plans regarding how they respond to emergencies. Districts are required to complete security audits of each campus by the end of August, Abbott said.

Abbott said his office has also distributed DVDs and CD-ROMs to schools and districts statewide that explain what to do in the event of a shooting and how to put together emergency plans. He also touted a new section of his office’s Web site geared toward students, which can be found at www.oag.state.tx.us/criminal/schoolsafety.shtml.

May said his district has completed security audits on 24 of its 31 campuses and will have a presentation ready for its school board by next summer’s deadline. King said his district is also in the midst of that process and will have presentations ready as well.

A 2002 U.S. Secret Service study of 37 school shootings found that in more than 80 percent of the cases, at least one person knew the shooter was planning an attack. Studies like those underscore the need for tip lines, so students can anonymously report threats.

McAllen schools police Cpl. Mike Zamora noted the district’s security measures, which include its own police force, a Crime Stoppers tip line, identification scanners at its school entrances to screen out potentially dangerous visitors, surveillance cameras and a binder full of emergency plans.

Abbott said the McAllen school district has set an example he hopes others follow.

King said PSJA does not have its own Crime Stoppers line, but promotes municipal police tip lines.

Though Abbott admits some of the measures are cost-prohibitive for smaller districts, he said creating emergency plans would help promote safety and cost nothing.

“Students have a hard time learning if they don’t have a sense of safety and security,” Abbott said.

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Ryan Holeywell covers PSJA and general assignments for The Monitor. He can be reached at (956) 683-4446.