Houston ISD would upgrade school security if voters approve its $4.4B bond this November

Oct. 6, 2024—Marta Rivas, principal of Frank Black Middle School, has been losing sleep for weeks worrying about how the campus would handle a campus-wide lockdown in an emergency.

The 75-year-old campus in Oak Forest consists of five buildings with doors that open directly to the outdoors. Although the doors remain locked, Rivas said 1,370 Houston ISD students move between the buildings at least four times daily, some walking on sidewalks directly bordering the visitor parking lot to access their classes or the restroom.

"We have so many doors that are exterior doors," Rivas said. "We cannot lock(down) the school every day and have four gates locked during the day because we have visitors (and) people are coming to get their kids. It's total access all the time, so it's really, really, really challenging."

Rivas said the Vanguard magnet school has extra personnel patrolling the campus to address safety challenges and hasn't had any incidents this academic year. However, after a series of violent threats last month against school districts nationwide, including HISD campuses, she's becoming increasingly concerned about security at the middle school.

If HISD's proposed $4.4 billion bond passes in November, Black would receive nearly $178 million, which would go, in part, toward safety upgrades and a full rebuild of the campus. The bond would allocate about $384 million for safety improvements at 263 schools, including upgrades to perimeter fencing, security cameras, and exterior and interior doors.

"Just thinking about that for us is a dream," Rivas said.

In addition to allocating hundreds of millions of dollars for lead abatement, technology upgrades and improvements to heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems, HISD has said the bond, if passed, would provide the district with enough funding to meet the safety and security requirements included in House Bill 3, which became law on Sept. 1, 2023.

"We want to make sure that our response to safety and security is comprehensive, that it is based upon evidence and best practices and things that just make sense for campuses, anything from fencing to our exterior doors to making sure that our access to the building is secure," HISD police chief Shamara Garner said in an interview with the Chronicle.

State lawmakers passed HB 3 partly in response to the shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde in 2022 when a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers after scaling the perimeter fence at Robb Elementary School and opening a closed — but unlocked — door to access a fourth-grade classroom full of children.

HB 3 requires all districts to comply with the Texas Education Agency's School Safety Standards, which mandates a physical barrier, like a vestibule, camera system or other security method, at the primary entrance of all schools to prevent unrestricted visitor access.

It also mandates that districts enclose schools with a "well-maintained" fence that is at least 6 feet high and can't be scaled easily, if it is not operationally feasible for a school to keep its doors closed, locked and latched.

Potential districtwide safety, and security upgrades

At Hobby Elementary School, Principal Philma Thomas-Muhammad said she's concerned about the "little gates" surrounding the school in Houston's Brentwood neighborhood. She said anyone in the community could potentially scale the fence, which is "not that high," to get closer to the temporary buildings where fifth graders attend reading, math and science classes.

The bond would allocate more than $74 million to Hobby Elementary, which includes security upgrades and a full rebuild and expansion of the 59-year-old campus. Thomas-Muhammad said a new fence and building with classroom doors that are not accessible from the outdoors would provide about 480 students with "a fair opportunity to learn in a safe environment."

"In a perfect world, I envision Hobby having a closed-in building that reflects the present day and age and the intentional work that we're doing around student safety," Thomas-Muhammad said. "I would envision a campus where thought is being put into (student safety,) so that our kids truly have access to the same kind of facility that a student in River Oaks would have access to."

According to HISD, the bond, if passed, would allocate funding to upgrade fencing at 195 schools, security vestibules at 221 schools, exterior doors at 31 schools, interior doors at 152 schools, and electronic safety equipment at 241 schools. The district has not outlined the specific upgrades each individual school would receive under the bond.

Alishia Jolivette, HISD's interim chief operating officer of business operations, said the district would aim to begin installing vestibules and making other security upgrades within a year if the bond passes. Still, she did not provide a timeline for completion.

HB 3 also requires districts to have at least one armed security officer at all campuses, which several districts, including HISD, have filed exemptions for due to a lack of funding and available officers statewide. Garner said the district's police department currently has police officers assigned to all middle and high schools, but not all elementary schools.

Along with infrastructure improvements, the bond proposes allocating $2.15 million for police upgrades, which Garner said would be used to purchase additional resources and materials for the expanding police force. State law prohibits school districts from using bond funds on personnel costs, but they can be used to retrofit vehicles for safety or security purposes.

"We are adding armed guards to our elementary schools, but as we want to backfill those positions with law enforcement and as the agency grows, we're going to need infrastructure and things to keep up with that growth, whether it's patrol cars, whether it's radios (or) whether it's upgrading our dispatch center," Garner said.

'We're all competing for the same grants''

HB 3 provides districts with $15,000 per campus and an additional $10 per student to fund all the security upgrades. Still, several Texas school districts say the funding is insufficient to fully comply. Under the law, school districts can use bond funds "to pay the costs associated with complying with school safety and security requirements."

"The bill itself has a lot of positive components for our communities to build off of, but we did not fund it to the extent that we needed to, to be able to help districts bear that burden," said Rep. Joe Moody, D- El Paso. "We talk a lot about property taxes and skyrocketing this, that or the other, but when we put these types of burdens on our districts and then don't follow it with funds, we're part of the problem."

Moody, a sponsor of HB 3, said state lawmakers shouldn't be putting districts in a position where they have to ask voters for additional money through bond elections, but there are few other options. Without more state funding, other large school districts, including Cypress-Fairbanks and Northside ISDs, have asked voters to approve school bonds to comply with the bill's safety mandates.

Barry Perez, spokesperson for Northside ISD in San Antonio, said the district's school bonds have helped fund security vestibules for all its elementary schools. NISD voters passed a nearly $849 million bond in 2018 and a $992 million bond in 2022 for the district, which has about 100,000 students.

Cypress-Fairbanks ISD has paid for its security improvements through a combination of 2019 bond funds and grants and its maintenance and operations budget. According to a statement, the state's third-largest school district is now compliant or provisionally compliant with all HB 3 requirements, and the remaining work is being completed through ongoing campus renovations.

Jolivette said HISD has sought other funding sources to address campus security, including applying for state school safety grants. Still, the grants do not cover all the unmet needs. She said HISD is also competing for grants with all the other districts trying to improve their infrastructure simultaneously.

"There's only so much that they're going to award the school districts," Jolivette said. "We are continually applying for them. If they have a round two, a round three (or) a round four, we're going to continue to apply, so we are using those funds as well, but again, it's not enough."

Garner said HISD has been addressing fencing and other security fixes throughout the school year and will continue if the bond does not pass next month. However, she and Jolivette said the additional funding provided with the bond would allow the district to address safety concerns and compliance more quickly.

If the bond does not pass, HB 3 allows HISD to exempt certain campuses from complying with statewide school facility and safety standards for several reasons, including funding availability and the age, design, or location of the campus. However, it must develop alternative performance standards that are confidential to the public.

"We understand apprehension and questions," Garner said. "All of that is natural. My hope is that, in the midst of the conversation, that children's needs are not missed. ... Whatever happens in November, we are still committed to keeping kids safe. We've already started most of these initiatives with grant funding. We will continue to do so because our No. 1 priority is keeping our students and our staff safe."

HISD reporter Nusaiba Mizan contributed to this story.

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