CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Tuloso-Midway Independent School District Superintendent Steve VanMatre said thanks to community support and the $165 million received from Bond 2023 the district was able to make major safety improvements to their campuses.
"Although education is our passion, safety is our priority," he said.
The superintendent said while he cannot guarantee that an incident won't ever happen, the district has made mindful efforts to keep students safe.
"We value their children and that anything we can do -- and their seeing it -- to keep them safe and our staff safe we are going to do it," VanMatre said.
As part of the security upgrades, all of their campuses now have single-entrance design plans.
"Meaning you cannot come into the facility except through this front door, which has two very hardened security entrances," he said.
Tuloso-Midway Intermediate School Principal Stacy Lucas demonstrated visitor procedures for 3NEWS.
"We do have our updated bulletproof doors," Lucas said.
The doors weren't cheap, according to VanMatre saying the district cut no costs when it came to safety and security including $2 million in cameras.
"The latest technology where if someone goes through our building and they're wearing a blue shirt, we have the technology to ask for that, to show us people that's gone through our facility with a blue shirt," he said.
More upgrades include new exterior doors, as well as metal detectors at their middle and high schools which helps with another major issue schools are facing nationwide -- vaping.
VanMatre said student vaping has prompted the use of vaping sensors in the bathrooms.
"That will alert us if a vape comes in and we've caught many of our students with that," he said.
He added that while there are consequences involved his focus is on education.
"Being proactive and educating our students on the harmful effects of that," VanMatre said.
When it comes to their cell phone policy, the superintendent said they are more relaxed and operate on an honor system where teachers expect devices to be put away and out of sight during instruction.
Above all else, VanMatre said in all his years of being a superintendent, he's never felt better than going into the year than this one.