AUSTIN, Texas — Summer for Austin ISD students is coming to an end. As it gets closer to the start of the school year, the district will discuss safety plans with families at a back-to-school bash on Saturday.
After the tragic shooting in Uvalde in May where 19 children and two teachers were killed, AISD Police Chief Wayne Sneed said he knows everyone is thinking about school safety.
"It's very difficult to learn if you're constantly worried about your safety," Chief Sneed said.
Sneed has worked for the district for a decade and led the mental health and community engagement unit for AISD police. He said there's a big focus on mental health because it's often the root cause of safety issues.
"We work with our counselors, we train with our counselors so that we're working like hands in glove," Chief Sneed said.
Jason Stanford, the AISD communications director, said the district's 2022 bond proposal includes items to address safety.
"We started this bond process well before Uvalde," Stanford said. "When that happened, we took another look at our work and realized we needed funding for secure vestibules in there so that you need to go through two controlled, locked doors to get into the school, and millions of dollars for re-keying the school."
Stanford said only new schools from the 2017 bond have secure vestibules, and there are already some other safety measures in place.
"You can't get into our schools unless you have a key card or you're authorized, you're allowed in," Stanford said. "And we've been putting bullet-resistant film on the entryway windows over the last few years."
With all the safety features, Chief Sneed said there's a need for balance to make schools feel welcoming for students.
"When I was in school, we didn't have SROs, so things have changed," Chief Sneed said. "We want to assure our parents that we will take the steps necessary to ensure that their kids feel safe coming to school."
The chief added that officers will not only work to assess any threats but also get students the help they need.
"We take every threat seriously. We have to. I believe last year we had over 200 threats either against a campus or individuals that we had to investigate," Chief Sneed said.
To identify any potential threats, Chief Sneed said it's going to take the community's help to keep everyone safe.
"The more eyes and ears we have on a situation, the better we are to foil any possibility of something happening that could be tragic," Chief Sneed said.
PEOPLE ARE ALSO READING: