SMCISD enacts new safety measures

The first day of school is often chaos, the good kind. Parents escort their littlest ones onto campus; old friends reunite; teachers offer students a warm welcome.

San Marcos Consolidated ISD, in the wake of a recent Texas tragedy, is taking a different approach.

SMCISD will not allow visitors on campus for two weeks at the start of the fall semester to allow time for students, staff, and teachers to familiarize themselves with school safety protocols.

“As much as we want parents to be able to walk their students down the hallway that first day of school, we want to reiterate our safety practices to our students and remind them about the protocols we have in place,” said Andrew Fernandez, San Marcos CISD Chief of Communications.

Fernandez stressed that the district does not intend to exclude parents through its latest visitors policy.

“We want their involvement, but we need to get our students back in the process of regular school and reiterating our safety protocols,” he said.

San Marcos CISD staff have taken new measures heading into the 2022-23 school year to ensure student safety. The measures include completing an exterior door audit on all 26 campuses and hiring two new safety coordinators to assist the district Chief of Safety and Security.

The school district also implemented a brand-new text message notification system to alert faculty when exterior doors are open “so they can go down there as quickly as possible and make sure it’s secured,” said Fernandez.

Other safety protocols include reunification training.

Last month, the Hays County Standard Response Protocol Task Force held a two-day reunification training at San Marcos High School taught by the I Love You Guys Foundation.

I Love You Guys teaches the Standard Reunification Method, a strategy based on five actions — hold, secure, lockdown, evacuate, and shelter.

According to their website, the foundation has taught crisis response and post-crisis reunification strategies to 30,000 schools nationwide.

Fernandez summarized the reunification process San Marcos CISD will follow in a lockdown situation.

“Instead of having families go to campus to reunite with their child, we would move those students and teachers and staff to a different location where the reunification takes place,” Fernandez said.

Through reunification training, campus staff ask themselves questions such as “do you have your class roster? Where would you locate? Where would you put the parents to wait for the students to arrive? Where are the students going to be?” Fernandez added. “(Reunification training is) just thinking about all those things so that it becomes muscle memory.”

Ensuring student safety has become a top priority for schools across the nation following the news of a devastating mass shooting in Uvalde.

On Tuesday, May 24, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos opened fire inside a classroom at Robb Elementary School, killing 19 children and two teachers.

News of one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history quickly spread, spurring action from government officials. In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott recently announced the approval of $105.5 million for school safety and mental health programs, according to a June 28 press release.

“The State of Texas is acting swiftly to ensure our schools are secure and that children, teachers, and families across Texas have the support and resources they need to be safe as we work to prevent future tragedies like the heinous crime committed in Uvalde,” Abbott said. “Our communities — urban and rural — are stronger when Texans are safe and healthy, and I thank my partners in the legislature for quickly addressing the need to expand critical mental health and school safety initiatives in the Lone Star State.”

On June 30, the Texas Education Agency in coordination with the Texas School Safety Center (TxSSC) released directives requiring local education agencies (LEAS) to complete the following:

•Conduct a Summer Targeted Partial Safety Audit and an Exterior Door Safety Audit;

•Ensure the training of threat assessment team members;

•Conduct exterior door sweeps (ensuring doors are closed and locked) at least once a week;

•Review their Multi-Hazard Emergency Operations Plan;

•Ensure campus staff are trained in campus safety procedures, and

•Schedule all mandatory drills for the school year.

While state education agencies have released their guidance publicly, San Marcos CISD will not be taking the same approach.

“We truly can’t always advertise everything we’re doing from a safety standpoint, because we need to keep it confidential and keep our safety plan in-house so that it doesn’t get out to those that don’t need it,” said Fernandez. “We don’t want our safety plan to be used against us.”

Fernandez advises parents to speak up (if they see something, say something) and not to hesitate to contact the school district with any questions or concerns over student safety.

“We are here to support you as a parent. We are here to support our students,” he said. “This is a two-way street.”