San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Who’s to lift hefty security bill?
State leaders seek campus upgrades
In the wake of the Santa Fe High School shooting that left 10 people dead and 13 others injured, political and education leaders across Texas are proposing ways to avoid the next campus shooting: more law enforcement officers, more counselors, more metal detectors.
All of which requires more money — something many cash-strapped school districts do not have right now.
Legislators and school dis- trict governing boards soon will start grappling with how to pay for expensive upgrades designed to keep Texas schoolchildren safe, as state leaders seek more secure campuses in light of May 18’s massacre. The cost of those improvements, however, likely will extend into the hundreds of millions of dollars statewide, at a time when many school districts are dipping into reserves to balance their budgets.
The tug-and-pull over who will pay for the new security measures figures to further complicate the ongoing fight over school finance in Texas, which is expected to loom large over the 2019 legislative session. Local school districts are demanding legislators increase the state’s contribution to public education, which has dropped roughly 48 percent to 39 percent over the past decade, with local taxpayers picking up the slack. Overall education funding has remained relatively stagnant during that stretch when adjusted for inflation.
Gov. Greg Abbott, who last week held three roundtable
meetings centered on campus safety and gunlaw reform, said he has not yet focused on the price tag of security upgrades, but is confident the state will find money.
“We do recognize some of these proposals will require more funding. We have not talked about specific funding yet,” Abbott said last week. “I will suggest that I believe there will be a commitment in the Capitol to make sure that we are smart and strategic in providing the resources that are necessary to keep our fellow citizens and our students safe.”
State Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, who participated in Tuesday’s roundtable with the governor, said he usually is cynical at such events but found the gathering meaningful and substantive.
“There will be some funding issues, but the governor seemed to be favorable toward that,” said Whitmire, who chairs the Senate Committee on Criminal Justice. “I’m always guardedly — yeah, I’m optimistic. I didn’t know what to expect, but I’m pleased.”
In recent years, school districts in Texas have invested tens of millions of dollars in security upgrades on campuses, largely by renovating facilities and installing new technology designed to control access to buildings.
In San Antonio, recent bond issues have funded security improvements at area districts, including surveillance cameras and vestibules with bulletresistant glass at main entrances where office staff are required to buzz visitors in. Many other school entrances can be opened only by employees with electronic cards.
School bond revenues, however, cannot be used to pay for law enforcement officers, counselors and other staff members dedicated to ensuring student mental health and safety. Districts must pay for those costs out of their operating budgets, which have tightened in recent years as costs and student populations rise faster than local and state tax revenues.
Bexar County school districts each have their own police departments staffed by licensed peace officers, and some run anonymous tip lines that officers staff around the clock. In some school districts, tipsters are offered a financial reward for information that prevents an incident or leads to an arrest or conviction.
After the Feb. 14 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High
School in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 dead, North East Independent School District contracted with Social Sentinel, a company that monitors social media, to flag threats against the district, its schools or students, according to NEISD spokeswoman Aubrey Chancellor said.
But NEISD, San Antonio’s second-largest school district, also is facing a two-year budget shortfall of $29 million as sharply falling enrollment cuts into its state aid even as the district starts paying into the state’s “Robin Hood” fund that aids poorer districts. That shortfall has led to $12 million in expected spending cuts next year, including eliminating more than 100 teaching positions through attrition.
It’s not the only local school district facing budget woes. San Antonio Independent School District has reported that continued declines in enrollment are expected to produce a two-year shortfall of $31 million. South San Antonio and Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City ISDs both are considering holding tax ratification elections, or TREs, this year to address the same problems.
But in the wake of the Santa Fe shooting, several school districts in the state have announced they are considering whether to hire more police officers and school resource officers next year. Mental health advocates also have pushed for hiring more school counselors, who serve as a primary point of contact for many students.
Franklin D. Sampson, director of guidance and counseling for CypressFairbanks ISD, said additional counselors would allow more oneon-one contact with students, giving staff members more time to identify students needing mental health assistance. Cypress-Fairbanks ISD high schools have one counselor for every 425 students, while middle schools have one for every 300 children, Sampson said. The American School Counselor Association recommends a 250-to-1 ratio.
“Could we use more staff on campuses throughout the nation? Absolutely,” Sampson said. “We strongly feel that, as counselors in the mental health profession, being proactive is the best solution to avoiding future problems. … If there are lower ratios, then it’s highly probable that the counselor would know their students even better.”