SAN ANTONIO — Governor Greg Abbott wants extensive school safety checks including unannounced random inspections of school campuses in wake of the Robb Elementary shooting.
But some lawmakers disagree this is the right approach to school safety.
“There’s teachers, administrators, and for summer school students still in there, it’s the wrong time,” State Representative Diego Bernal criticized Governor Abbott’s move on Twitter.
The letter from Abbott asks the TEA and the Texas School Safety Center to do random inspections to assess access control measures in Texas schools, including in-person, unannounced, random intruder detection audits.
"So you want grown men to show up to schools unannounced and try as hard as they can to find a way in? This is a terrible idea," Bernal said in a tweet.
“They’ve already been through too much, why scare them?” Rep. Bernal asks.
The Texas School Safety Center tells KENS 5 in a statement: “[we] received Governor Abbott’s letter and shares his desire to ensure the safety and security of our schools. TxSSC is designing a program and action items to specifically address the governor’s directives within the prescribed timelines.”
Governor Abbott wants a progress report provided to the state legislature by October 1.
“I think there’s a lot of things we could do to make schools safer, but we also need to do a lot of things to make our state safer, and that’s the one thing I feel like the governor’s not really trying to do or take seriously,” Rep. Bernal wants Abbott to call a special legislative session to address these issues.
“I would like for next school year to be different, whether its gun laws, mental health support funding, something has to be different. And if you don’t have a special session now, nothing will be different, it will be the exact same as it is right now,” he said.