PFLUGERVILLE, Texas — On Monday night, Pflugerville ISD's Safety and Security Committee reviewed the past school year's Emergency Operating Procedures (EOP), less than two weeks after the Uvalde shooting.
While the shooting was not the specific topic for the meeting, which was scheduled months ago, some committee members still fielded questions based on the information shared from the Uvalde shooting, including information about alarms and security doors.
"Typically, this meeting is looking over all of the emergency operation procedures, and that is a chance for us to look over our plans," Tamra Spence, a spokesperson for the school district, said. "We have very detailed plans for a variety of issues that could impact our schools – everything from weather events to individuals. And so, these EOP, they let all of our agencies that are involved in the district – our district police, our city police, Austin police, fire, everyone – it lets everyone know what their role is in the event of any type of emergency."
Spence added, unfortunately, school shootings have become all too common, so the topic is always top of mind for this committee.
"School shootings, tragically, are not new," Spence said. "It's something that we think about every single time we meet. As with any other type of tragedy that befalls a school, again, whether it's an individual perpetrating something or a weather event, there's always an after-action that happens after those. They happened after Santa Fe. They happened after Sandy Hook. They're difficult, but there's something that's very important as we all learn things, you know, we learn any issues that may arise and things we can do to fix those and address those for any of our future procedures."
Because the investigation into the what happened before, during and after the Uvalde shooting is still ongoing, Spence said they will wait to see an after-action report before addressing their own policies.
"Uvalde is still very fresh. It's something that none of us will forget," Spence said. "At this point, we haven't received the after-action plan really to know what transpired and what caused that to happen, what safety procedures may have been followed or may need to be fixed. So, at this point, although I'm sure it weighs heavy on everyone's minds, it's not the main topic for us until we get that after-action plan. And then we can review those procedures again to see is there anything else that we need to address or update."
The committee meets three times every year. They will meet again in October as the new school year gets underway.
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