School districts across Texas are busy discussing new safety procedures in the wake of the Santa Fe High School shooting.
Nearly 220 Texas districts so far will start the year by arming staff members. That's up from 170 before February's school shooting in Florida.
Cy-Fair ISD is currently conducting high-level security meetings, and plans to roll out its safety measures soon. Meanwhile, Huffman ISD officials already have decided arming staff is the best way forward.
“Not just teachers, there will be adminstrators and other staff members in the district that could potentially be a guardian,” says district spokeswoman Shirley Dupree.
Huffman ISD serves about 3,300 students, but only contracts two school resource officers through the sheriff's department.
“The focus is on that gap time between when the shooting starts and when law enforcement gets there, which might be three to five minutes,” says Dupree. “We hope it wouldn't be more than five minutes for law enforcement to arrive.”
Dupree says additional meetings are planned to discuss what she describes as a multi-layered approach to school safety.
“We're going to come together this summer and look at what those layers look like for us, and we'll talk about things like metal detectors,” she says.
Gov. Greg Abbott's 40-page response to Santa Fe also included expanding mental health measures to help identify troubled students. He also offered support for so-called “red flag laws” allowing temporary removal of firearms for those deemed a danger to themselves and others.
Requests for interviews from Fort Bend, Katy and Spring ISD's were not returned.