AUSTIN, Texas — Governor Greg Abbott released a new report Tuesday, detailing the progress state lawmakers and agencies have made in keeping students and teachers safe at school.
The report focuses on the progress of the 31 recommendations Gov. Abbott put out in his "School Safety Action Plan." That plan was the result of a series of roundtable discussions the governor hosted following the 2018 shooting at Santa Fe High School, when a student opened fire on campus, killing 10 people and injuring more than a dozen others.
During the last legislative session, Texas lawmakers passed several bills based on Gov. Abbott's report, as the governor pointed out last week during a roundtable on a separate shooting in El Paso earlier this month.
"Those discussions weren't just for show and for people to go off into the sunset and do nothing. They led to more than 20 laws being signed by me to make sure that the State of Texas was a better, safer place, including our schools for our children," Gov. Abbott said.
According to the progress report, 25 of the governor's 31 recommendations have been implemented, lawmakers passed 17 new school safety laws last session and allocated $339 million in the state's two-year budget toward school safety. That money will be used for a variety of things from mental health resources on campus to making the school buildings themselves safer.
But among the pages of accomplishments is a statement in bold letters: "However, there is more to do to improve the safety of our schools and the students and teachers in our classrooms."
The governor wrote, "More work is needed to create a school culture that builds character and fellowship through parental engagement and community involvement."
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And he echoed that sentiment during the El Paso roundtable.
"In the round tables we had in the aftermath of Santa Fe, we thought that we took big steps to be able to address the challenges of gun violence in the State of Texas," Gov. Abbott said. "Obviously in the aftermath of that, there was a different type of gun violence."
The governor also wrote he stands ready to find more solutions while the legislature is out of session, and he will work to pass even more laws to keep kids safe next session.
You can read Gov. Abbott's full report below:
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