HOUSTON – Every school classroom in Texas will soon be required to have silent panic alert technology.
Governor Greg Abbott signed SB 838, also known as ‘Alyssa’s Law,’ this week.
The bill is named after one of the victims of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida in 2018.
“Our founders lost their beautiful 14-year-old daughter, Alyssa Alhadeff, [and now] we are here to strengthen the weaknesses in school security,” said officials with the Make Our Schools Safe organization. “Parkland’s shooting did not have to happen. We are here to take action, protecting schools so it never happens again.”
The technology is more advanced than what we typically think of when it comes to silent alarms.
The bill’s author, State Representative Shawn Thierry, said teachers or faculty members could have an app installed on their phones and, with the press of a button, could alert local law enforcement to a possible threat.
“Our schools, right now, are our least secure government-owned buildings. However, they house our most vulnerable population and that should not be the case,” said Thierry. “Whether you’re a rural community or urban community, every single public school in the state of Texas will house this technology. It is fully funded,” Thierry said. “We helped create a grant of over $17 million to TEA (Texas Education Agency).”
KPRC 2′s Rilwan Balogun reached out to the Texas Education Agency but did not get a response.
The bill states funding would come from “school safety allotment…or other available funds; and use the district’s or school’s customary procurement process.”
Thierry explained it this way in a text to KPRC 2′s Rilwan Balogun, “it appears that the silent panic alert technology only costs about $5,000 per school campus. The legislative budget board calculated that the $17.1 million grant would fund it statewide. So, they have the SPAT (Silent Panic Alarm Technology) grant funding provided but that’s in addition to the new money added to their school safety allotment which was appropriated at $1.1 billion for this biennium.”
However, Lisa Alpe, the Spring Branch ISD Board of Trustee Vice President says they haven’t seen additional funding.
“Thus far, we’ve been given a grant for $87,000 to begin installing panic buttons in each of our classrooms,” Alpe said. “Well, that covers almost all of our pre-K centers. So we are still left with elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools.”
The TEA’s website shows Spring Branch ISD received $87,614 for Silent Panic Alert Technology which states was authorized in 2022 when lawmakers “announced $17,104,000 in funding to TEA to distribute to school districts to purchase silent panic alert technology.”
The website nor TEA officials explain how the districts will get funds following the signing of Alyssa’s Law.
Spring Branch ISD leaders say to follow the new law and equip the technology in every classroom would cost between $8 and $10 million dollars for its district.
“They give us no additional money despite inflation since 2019 and so we’re going to be left with a pretty terrible choice, follow the law and install panic buttons and cut academic programs I mean which is it? Which do they value more? Do we need to be keeping our children safe, that’s always a number one priority that will come at the extent of academic programming,” Alpe said.
Thierry stresses that the money is available to every district.
“It’s really more about how certain local school districts prioritize their school safety funding. They have to have something to show for what they do with the money,” Thierry said. “My position is that parents pay property taxes which goes to fund their public schools and parents want and need their kids to have as many school safety resources for as possible!”