By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
Calling campus security and student safety “the highest priority right now,” school district officials Wednesday outlined some of the steps that have already been taken to mitigate the horrifying specter of a shooter targeting a Del Rio school.
San Felipe Del Rio CISD Superintendent of Schools Dr. Carlos Rios reviewed safety measures the district has already put in place and other measures it will enact in the coming weeks and months during a meeting of the district’s safety and security committee.
Sandra Hernandez, the district’s administrative director, welcomed those attending the meeting, a mix of school board trustees, teachers, parents and law enforcement officers. She said the committee, required by the state, had been in place for some time and noted its members were recently reaffirmed by the school district’s board of trustees.
“The main purpose of this committee is to share with you all what we’re doing as a district to keep our kids safe and have you all either say, ‘Spend a lot of time on this’ or ‘We really need you to think about this, that maybe we haven’t thought about.’ The idea is to get people from different parts of the community involved,” Rios told the group.
Rios said the massacre in Robb Elementary School in Uvalde two months ago created a renewed focus on the physical security of students and staff on the district’s numerous campuses.
He said the district has for many years conducted drills and worked on creating secure campuses, such as elementary schools with a single point of entry.
“We’ve done a lot, but with the incident that happened in Uvalde, we all asked ourselves, have we done enough? And the answer’s always going to be no, because you can never be entirely sure, so we had to take a strong look at ourselves, before the state even jumped in and said you have to do x,y and z,” Rios said.
He said the district has conducted several audits of school district doors, focusing on making sure that every door that is supposed to lock does, in fact, lock.
Rios said the district’s board of trustees has approved funding for three additional counselors and eight additional school district police officers. The board also allotted funding to outfit campus doors with magnetic locks and swipe cards.
“Every door to the exterior will have a sensor – some already have them – but now every door will have a sensor to make sure that we know if it’s open or not, so that the system’s always secure,” Rios said.
The board also allocated funding to make sure the perimeter fences around the district’s campuses are secure and have worked to clean brush from around district buildings to eliminate hiding places.
Rios said the district will also increase the number of “lock out drills” conducted for students and staff and has in place a system to alert teachers in cases of emergency.
Another piece of the security equation that has been reinforced over the past two months, Rios said, is the level of cooperation between the school district’s police department, the Del Rio Police Department and the Val Verde County Sheriff’s Office.
He said the city, the county and the school district’s governing bodies have all approved a memorandum of understanding codifying how the entities will work together in the event of a crisis.
“We put it on paper as to how many trainings we would commit to throughout the year, both tabletop exercises and active shooter drills. Representatives from the city, the sheriff’s office and the school district will come to train together frequently so that we can get as many people trained as possible, to have a common language, a common approach to how we attack a situation,” Rios said.
Rios said eventually other agencies like the Border Patrol and the Texas Department of Public Safety will also be invited to participate in the exercises.
“It’s a great start . . . We want to be able to figure out problems ahead of time. How to get through doors, how to maneuver through a hall,” DRPD Chief Frank Ramirez said after Rios’ presentation.
Following the presentation, the two parents present at the meeting, Melyna Gonzalez Fernandez and Kayla Casillas, as well as the teacher representatives, Roy Dominguez and Brenda Campos, asked questions and made suggestions.
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