Schools open to higher security
Fortified campuses await students as a result of recent shooting sprees
When students begin to return to schools across the Houston area Wednesday, many will notice substantial changes to their campuses.
Dozens of campuses were outfitted with security vestibules over the summer. Clear Creek, Texas City, Dickinson and Magnolia ISDs will nearly double the number of school liaison officers patrolling their schools. Huffman ISD will roll out a guardian program to arm some teachers, and all middle and high school students in Cypress-Fairbanks ISD will be required to use clear backpacks.
The security upgrades come on the heels of a spate of school shootings during the 2017-2018 school year, most recently at Santa Fe High School in Galveston County, where a 17year-old gunman killed 10 and injured 13 in May. The proximity of that shooting shocked many area school districts into action over the summer, leading them to approve hundreds of thousands of dollars for new security officers, building upgrades and active-shooter training sessions.
“All of a sudden, it became really real,” said Rob Stewart, director of student services in Magnolia ISD. “A lot of us here in Magnolia, we have friends or connections down in the Santa Fe area. Our hearts broke for those people, but they also got a little harder. We said ‘not in Magnolia,’ and want to do whatever we can to prevent some-
thing like that from happening here. We don’t know any way to fully prevent it, but we want to do our best.”
Nowhere have the changes been more drastic than in Santa Fe ISD and the Galveston County districts it borders.
Each of Santa Fe ISD’s four schools have been outfitted with walk-through metal detectors. The high school is undergoing drastic renovations to make the facility more difficult to enter without permission and to coverup bullet holes that riddled the northwest portion of the campus. Its internal police department will grow from 10 officers to 14 full-time officers, 10 part-time officers and at least five full-time campus security assistants by the time school starts Monday.
The Galveston County Sheriff’s Office has been inundated with requests for more school liaison officers. The demand has been so great that, for the first time in its history, the number of officers in its schools’ division will outnumber those in its patrol ranks, rising from 44 officers last year to at least 71 this month.
To fill the gaps, Chief Deputy Darrell Isaacks said the office has had to shuffle people from other departments into the schools’ division and hire officers away from other agencies. When he joined the force in 1985, it employed only two school liaison officers.
“It’s crazy,” Isaacks said. “Our dilemma is finding officers to fill these positions. We’ve done pretty good, but I will tell you this: Our biggest school district is Clear Creek ISD, and last school year we had 25 deputies there. This year, they asked for an additional 15.”
The additional officers in Clear Creek were recommended by the district’s safety and security committee, which convened less than a month after the Santa Fe High massacre. A majority of districts polled by the Chronicle created similar groups to devise ways to better protect students and prevent bloodshed. The largest exception is the Houston ISD, where officials said no additional security measures were proposed or implemented at its 284 campuses during the summer.
Many of the ideas proposed by local safety committees are similar: stricter adherence to existing dress codes and identification card procedures; facility upgrades, such as limiting the number of entrances, installing security vestibules, the addition of bullet-resistant glass or film in strategic spots and panic buttons. Other recommendations included the creation of new threat-reporting systems and active-shooter and mass-casualty trainings for staff, including substitute teachers.
Others were more district specific. Cypress-Fairbanks ISD will install panic buttons in all 247 of its portable buildings. Cleveland ISD will put $60 door stoppers in each classroom. New Caney and Tomball ISDs will randomly screen students with metal detecting wands, and Lamar CISD hired former Rosenberg Police Chief Dallis Warren to be its first school safety coordinator.
Few of those changes are inexpensive.
Paul McLarty, Clear Creek ISD’s deputy superintendent of business and support services, said his district will have to add more than $2 million to its 20182019 budget to complete all 38 recommendations proposed by its security committee and approved by its board on July 23.
“We have tight budgets anyway, so we’re going to have a budget deficit this year. It’s just a giv“We en, and we’re willing to do that to make sure all the recommendations are done,” McLarty said, adding that some changes will have to be implemented months after start of school. “You have to be realistic. You can’t do everything right away because you don’t have staff or resources. You have to pick what has the most impact as soon as possible.”
Skimping on security also did not seem like an option in Magnolia ISD, which serves about 13,000 students just west of Conroe. Stewart said the costs associated with hiring 10 additional school liaison officers, installing new electronic locks, providing active-shooter trainings and creating an emergency-response plan are worth it for the sense of security they provide.
can teach kids if we can ensure they’re safe in a safe environment, and once we made that the priority, it became really easy to find the money,” Stewart said. “I won’t say it wasn’t a big commitment, because it was. But just like in your own home, you find money for what your priorities are, and so did we.”