State teachers association says current security measures not enough in wake of Uvalde shooting

SAN ANTONIO – Read the newest details about the Uvalde faculty shooting right here. Learn about the victims of Robb Elementary School right here.

In the wake of the Santa Fe High School shooting in 2018, Texas lawmakers handed two payments in the 86th legislative session to extend campus security and instructor coaching. One was Senate Bill 11.

“It requires the hardening of school buildings, local school safety committees, emergency plans and threat assessments,” stated Dr. Shannon Holmes, government director of the Association of Texas Professional Educators.

Holmes stated the opposite is a home invoice that expanded the varsity marshal program. La Vernia ISD is an space faculty district that not too long ago voted to permit employees members to hold hid weapons.

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“There’s a process for the guardian and marshal programs that each school district would have to go through, and they are laid out specifically in the statute. Districts who want to have educators carry on campus –those educators would have to go through a training program to be able to carry and make sure that they’re proficient and understand the school’s safety plan as they have it laid out,” stated Shannon.

But regardless of these legislative modifications, Robb Elementary in Uvalde is now the most recent Texas public faculty coping with the devastation of one other mass shooting.

“Arming educators isn’t the answer. That’s just putting one more thing on their already full and overflowing plate,” stated Ovidia Molina, president of the Texas State Teachers Association. “If you are an educator, a teacher, a hallway monitor, principal, whoever it is, you’re just putting another gun in the space. We’re not trained for that, and we’re also human beings who love our students. In many instances, the active shooters have been students or former students.”

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Molina stated lawmakers have not executed enough to maintain faculties protected, and elevated security measures are not working.

“We need to ensure that our students don’t have to go to school that feels like a prison, where you have to walk through a metal detector, lock the doors, and you only have one entry,” stated Molina. “These are things that are gut reactions that don’t make our schools feel safe because we also have to worry about how our children are going to cope with this trauma.”

Both Holmes and Molina stated extra monetary resources and funding are wanted for pupil counseling.

“Our focus is going to turn to additional funding for school resource officers, additional funding for school counselors. Many times our counselors are involved in things that are more administrative or testing kind of duties,” stated Holmes. “We need to free up our counselors to do more counseling and have a focus on student mental health.”

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Molina added that extra employees coaching and college shooter workouts are not the answer.

“We need to ensure that the lives that were lost yesterday are not lost in vain. That change happens so that another community doesn’t have to go through the same hurt and pain that we’re going through now,” stated Molina. “And ensure that we are funding the whole child. Texas is failing on that.”

“This is really not an education issue. This is a societal issue that is being acted out on school campuses and targeting the most vulnerable people in our society,” stated Holmes.

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