Students seek role in changes
Bellaire High teen’s classmates want their voices heard on security
With signs of remembrance in their hands and grief still heavy in their hearts, students from Bellaire High School called Friday for increased communication and collaboration from Houston ISD administrators following this week’s on-campus shooting death.
About 75 Bellaire classmates and friends of Cesar Cortes, the 19-year-old student killed in an apparent accidental shooting Tuesday, gathered outside the Houston ISD central administration building to issue their plea. They asked district officials to solicit feedback on school security, increase transparency after weapons-related events and institute additional protective measures — all with the goal of preventing gun violence.
“Students need to feel heard, and that’s been misplaced a lot,” said senior Izzy Richards, president of Students Demand Action Bellaire. “We want to be offered an opportunity to talk not just to counselors, but to people who can actually make change.”
HISD Interim Superintendent Grenita Lathan said in a statement that she will meet with students to address their concerns. She did not provide details on when those gatherings will occur.
Hours before the event, the 16year-old shooting suspect appeared in juvenile court on a manslaughter charge. A juvenile detention officer ordered that the boy remain in custody pending the results of a mental health evaluation. He is expected to reappear in court in two weeks.
Standing in a circle under gray skies, students carried written
messages to Cortes — “This is 4U Cesar,” “I’ll tell your story!!” — and pleaded through a loudspeaker about their desire for a voice in security upgrades.
Silvia Elizalde, a friend of Cortes from Bellaire’s JROTC program, arrived with a poster-sized drawing of a black hat bearing an American flag patch, illustrating the cap Cortes routinely wore.
She urged the crowd not to focus on gun control — Cortes enjoyed handling firearms and planned to join the Army, she said — but rather encouraged students to speak up after witnessing weapons on campus. Bellaire police said Wednesday that several students did not report the suspected assailant showing off a .32-caliber semiautomatic pistol hours before the shooting.
“It doesn’t matter if they call you a snitch or something,” Elizalde said. “What matters is everybody’s safety.”
As classes resumed Thursday and Friday, HISD officials limited entry into Bellaire and checked students’ bags by hand. HISD leaders have yet to announce any new districtwide security measures in the aftermath.
“HISD is exploring measures to increase student safety,” Lathan said. “These include reconvening safety and security council committees on every campus that will review safety protocols and procedures.”
Several students attending the rally said Bellaire’s administration, under ninth-year Principal Michael McDonough, has been responsive to student concerns about gun violence.
However, they also argued district leaders did not communicate enough information to students and parents after staff found guns on campus in September and October. McDonough sent a written message to the Bellaire High community after those discoveries, though the message did not contain details about the incidents or describe actions taken against students.
“A lot of us just feel frustrated because we don’t know what’s happening,” said Christopher Woodard, Bellaire’s student body president. “We feel in the dark about these events. If you don’t know how it unraveled, we don’t know how to solve this.”
Districts and schools typically do not divulge extensive information about weapons incidents that result in no injuries.
Woodard called on Bellaire staff to develop better relationships with students, hopeful that those bonds will result in his classmates reporting guns. Julia Andrews, director of the Harris County Department of Education’s Center for Safe and Secure Schools, said strong student-teacher connections rank among the best methods for preventing on-campus violence.
“When you build relationships with your students — and it can be the janitor, the cafeteria lady — students feel safe enough to confide that information,” Andrews said. “When students feel like there’s no culture of caring, they operate in silos. They just feel like, ‘If I don’t say anything, it’s OK.’”