GOP Bill Will Double Austin ISD Police

An Austin ISD police car (Courtesy of Austin ISD)

It's clearly not something that most parents or school administrators want, but Austin ISD will soon double the number of armed security guards at its schools. The guards, known as security resource officers or SROs, are necessary to comply with House Bill 3, a new state law that will go into effect Sept. 1. Still, parents asked the board on Thursday not to hire them.

"My child is a student of color and we know that SROs do not make schools safer, particularly for students of color, students with disabilities, LGBTQ students, and others," Natalie Beck said, her voice shaky with emotion. Beck asked the trustees to spend the district's money on mental health services instead. Other speakers said that armed officers make students nervous and trigger post-traumatic stress disorder. Several pointed out research finding that among schools that have experienced a shooting in the last decade, those with armed guards have had 2½ times more injuries.

HB 3 is the only school safety bill Texas Republicans adopted this session, after ignoring the parents of students killed in the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, who asked them to raise the age at which assault rifles can be purchased from 18 to 21. The bill will require every school in the state – including elementary schools – to have at least one armed person on campus. For AISD, that will mean hiring as many as 89 new SROs and the staff, equipment, and training materials necessary to support them.

Trustee Kevin Foster spoke to the quality of Austin ISD police. "The movement of this department over the last several years is towards the holistic safety of our children," Foster said. "So, not just reactive policing, but community-engaged, relational, conversational work. We're not perfect but my lay person's estimation is that we are in balance and that we are being asked to comply with a bad law that will throw us out of balance." He went on to urge the board to hire officers with "the right disposition" that have "a caring relationship with our kids and with our community."

AISD Police Chief Wayne Sneed reassured the trustees that the new officers, like the district's current ones, will spend four months in training to learn "the AISD way."

Trustee David Kauffman noted that HB 3 is something that Republicans, in a long-gone era, once complained bitterly about: an unfunded mandate – a law that will cost a great deal of money but for which no funds were provided. Foster said that the funding shortfall from HB 3 will surely reach into the millions (it's estimated to cost $8 million; the state has provided $2 million). He asked Edna Butts, director of intergovernmental relations, if there would be consequences should the district refuse to hire the new SROs. "Does the TEA have any enforcement mechanism around this?" Foster asked. "Have they said they're going to sanction us?"

"There is nothing in this bill that includes any kind of sanction," Butts answered, smiling slightly. She said she has heard doubts that TEA has jurisdiction over the matter.