AUSTIN, Texas — When an 18-year-old gunman freely entered Robb Elementary School in Uvalde killing 19 students and two teachers, school safety became a priority in the hearts and minds of state leaders and parents like Geoff Seibel, who has two daughters at Hays CISD.
"I could not ever imagine sending my kid to school one day and them not coming home," Seibel said. "And as a parent, that is just the greatest fear."
It led Texas lawmakers to pass a sweeping school safety measure to post an armed security officer at every school and provide mental health training for certain district employees, called House Bill 3. That law went into effect in September.
But months later, Central Texas school districts like Hays CISD are struggling to comply.
"So, we had an unfunded mandate. Not to mention the fact that we were in consideration of numerous law enforcement shortages throughout our specific area and, quite frankly, across the state and the country," Jeri Skrocki, Hays CISD's head of District Safety & Security, said.
For Skrocki, it comes down to filling the jobs. Skrocki said the district has 15 positions it needs to fill, insisting "everybody's in the same boat."
"We've met with the sheriff's office several times. They're trying in earnest," Skrocki said. "Just in the I-35 corridor where we live is that all these agencies are competing for the same one officer to come to their agencies."
Under the law, the state gives each school district $15,000 per campus and $10 per student, which Manor ISD Superintendent Dr. Robert Sormani said is not enough.
"It's not like these dollars come out of the air – they have to come from somewhere. So, ultimately, we're going to have to make decisions on what we're doing to do in the classroom, what we're going to do for staff salaries, what we're going to do for facilities," Sormani said.
He also admitted trade-offs to comply with HB 3 have come in many forms, like choosing not to open Wildhorse Elementary School, which was planned to open in Manor's master-planned community, Wildhorse. The district has also reduced the amount of money it is using to maintain air conditioning units.
"The reality is, we can't afford to open that facility. That would add another $1.2 million to our budget," Sormani said. "We have to decide: Can we afford to do frontline maintenance on A/C units versus paying for other things that we need to have for our students and our schools?"
Jacob Reach, Austin ISD's chief of Governmental Relations & Board Services, believes the state could have increased the amount of money each campus got to comply with HB 3.
"We believe that would probably be around $100,000 per campus," Reach said. "Then consider, perhaps, an additional amount per student that would help take into effect that some campuses are much larger than other campuses."
Esperanza Orosco, whose child attends Negley Elementary in Hays CISD, wishes the Legislature would have collaborated with superintendents from across the state to see how feasible this reality is.
"Having that conversation and saying, 'How are we going to do this and how are we going to fund it?' Right now, districts all over the state of Texas are facing deficit budgets," Orosco said.
Critics question whether having armed guards is the best answer to the threat of campus violence or the smartest way to spend the limited amount of dollars meant to go to education.
Paige Duggins-Clay has been advocating that the Legislature repeal HB 3 and invest in public schools instead.
"Research shows that adding armed security … particularly police, can destabilize school climates and ultimately doesn't prevent targeted school violence before it occurs," Duggins-Clay said.
The Center for Public Integrity analyzed data from the U.S. Department of Education that found school policing disproportionately affects students of color and students with disabilities.
"The reality is increasing more guns in our schools does not make our schools more safe," Duggins-Clay said. "It actually makes our students and our families less safe."
A national study at UC Irvine found introducing police officers into schools does lead to an increase in the arrest rates of young children. Duggins-Clay also has concerns educators will refer students to school-based law enforcement to deal with ordinary behavior challenges or other concerns.
"There are supposed to be very clear boundaries between school policing and security work and school discipline. But, unfortunately, in our experience, that line gets blurred," Duggins-Clay said.
Orosco believes HB 3 is not practical.
"Can we really get an SRO [student resource officer] in every campus in the state of Texas? In my district alone, we have over 24 campuses," Orosco said. "Is that realistic to think we'll have the law enforcement to staff each and every campus, and not even to talk about the training that goes behind it? I just feel that it's going to take some time and time is not always a good thing, right? We want to implement things quickly."
Seibel has mixed feelings about the law.
"I understand it from that perspective of why it needed to happen. But on the other side of it, taking away resources from other activities that kids are more involved in … It's a difficult thing for districts to deal with," Seibel said. "So it's intimidating and scary. It's a reality of their daily life, and it's just something that they're used to now."
As school leaders put this at the forefront, Duggins-Clay worries about the impact of more law enforcement on campus.
"We know that our educators are trained on the developmental stages of young people and how to support them with again positive behavior interventions and support. And those trainings and approaches are certainly not core to what law enforcement is trained to do," Duggins-Clay said.
But parents like Seibel still want to learn from past tragedies.
"As a parent … It's frustrating and it's sad," Seibel said. "I could not imagine my child not coming home."
There are still so many questions when it comes to preventing school-based violence, leaving parents and school leaders to find answers as we close one school year and soon begin another.
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