AUSTIN, Texas — The director of the Texas School Safety Center said school districts are taking safety seriously, but that more work needs to be done.
Dr. Kathy Martinez-Prather told KVUE's Jenni Lee that the findings from the state's final intruder detection audits report showed the importance of continued training for teachers, staff and students.
On Wednesday, KVUE reported on the findings of the report. Of the 7,200 campus visits, the report revealed that inspectors did not gain access to campuses around 95% of the time. But they were able to gain access just over than 4% of the time.
"We have a lot of work to do in making sure school districts don't become complacent, ensuring that they're consistently locking those exterior doors because what we did see in the majority of cases is that those unauthorized access came from secondary doors," Martinez-Prather said.
The report also showed that once inspectors entered the school, they were not stopped a majority of the time.
Martinez-Prather said the Texas Education Agency (TEA) will now take over the inspections.
The audits became state law after the mass shooting in Uvalde in May 2022. A subsequent investigation revealed that the gunman entered Robb Elementary School through an unlocked door before he shot and killed 19 students and two teachers.