Houston Chronicle by Shelby Webb Aug. 14, 2018
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 17-year-old gunman killed 10 and injured 13 others in May. The proximity of that shooting shocked many Houston-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 something like that from happening here. We don’t know any way to fully prevent it, but we want to do our best.â€
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 cover-up 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.
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