A Texas House committee heard testimony Wednesday on the effectiveness of House Bill 3, passed during the last legislative session to mandate the hiring of armed guards at every school in the state.
Officials said meeting the requirement remains a challenge because of a lack of funding, with schools needing tens of thousands of dollars more than they currently receive. HB-3 raised the funding allocation per pupil and per school to help hire a peace officer to provide security.
“We increased the allocation from $9,720 to $10,000, and then the additional $15,000 per campus for their ongoing needs. That’s what a school gets now,” said John Scott, director of the Texas Education Agency’s school safety office in testimony before the Select Committee on Youth Health and Safety.
Still, Scott said the amount needed would have to be much higher: “It’s about $85,000 for a Texas peace officer per campus, and then $60 for Marshall, and about $45 for a full-time tutor. It’s a pretty complex issue, but most, if not all, schools have expressed a desire to see an increase.”
Educators across the state had expressed concerns about funding, according to Rep. Ann Johnson, D-Houston: “The state must work beyond putting words on paper and ensuring laws are enforced, but must also ensure a culture of constant vigilance is ingrained in all schools.”
For his part, Scott confirmed that about 45%, or less than half, of schools are in compliance: “That means they have a Texas peace officer on every campus, good cause exception sometimes. People see it as a bad thing, it’s not always, it may be that they comply with a good cause exception, this may mean they have a deputy sheriff or a guardian.”
The discussion comes as many schools report copycat threats following the deadly shooting at a Georgia high school.
“We don’t want threats to become background noise, because if that happens and everyone starts ignoring them as if they’re not important, as if they’re just another hoax, it can create a very dangerous situation,” Scott added.
Kathy Martinez-Prather, director of the Texas School Safety Center, agreed: “We need to continue to educate not only our students, but also our parents and community members that they too have a role to play as agents of change in their environment.”
Despite the difficulties and lack of funds, the director of school safety assured that only about 2.5% of the state’s schools are not in compliance with HB-3 at all.
