Prompted by the threats and incidents around Ector County ISD, a parent and School Health Advisory Council member Friday asked police officers in attendance at a SHAC meeting in the ECISD administration building what’s being done and whether students understand the impact of their actions.
“As far as the threats on campus, we’re talking to the students. We’re educating them on what is a crime,” ECISD Police Lt. Scott McKown said.
He said this is being done proactively and reactively.
“We’re working with the Odessa Police Department and targeting certain campuses with high police presence in hopes to be a deterrent to those threats,” McKown said.
“It’s difficult because they don’t understand the gravity of that threat,” he added.
McKown said, “Some of them are great.”
“They’re very supportive and they understand how serious these little threats are. And others, they blame law enforcement, or the school district for making these rules and policies. And we have to explain to him, it’s not us. We don’t make the rules. We don’t make the laws. The school district doesn’t make the laws. This is the state of Texas, and it’s a difficult battle. I’m not going to deny that,” he added.
Three new officers have been hired and started this week. The ECISD Board of Trustees approved funding them at a recent meeting.
McKown said the new officers are undergoing field training right now and it’s hoped they’ll officially start in early 2023.
He added that he hoped there would be some grant money that would allow the department to hire more officers.
McKown said it’s also hoped that they can get some officers to teach a Gang Resistance Education And Training (GREAT) or DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) to start educating elementary students like fifth or sixth graders on dangers such as tobacco use, drug use, gang membership, violence and fighting.
“We would love to be able to provide that for the school district,” McKown said.
He added that officers are “spread very thin” right now.
McKown said campus safety audits are being completed every week by an officer.
The state also is coming in to conduct audits in the form of a representative from Region 18 Education Service Center.
McKown said they let the police know in advance that they’re coming, but they won’t say what campus they’re going to.
“They’ll call us and tell us we’re at Bowie, for example, and we’ll meet them there. We’ll walk with them while they do their safety audit. If they have a question, then we respond to them. We’ve been pretty successful with our audits so far this year. One campus had a door that wasn’t locking properly. So we had to, per state guidelines … go in and retrain every staff member on that campus, which has taken place. We’ve submitted that documentation back to the state,” McKown said.
On a separate topic, the committee discussed the Texas Youth Tobacco Survey. Bonham and Nimitz middle schools and Permian High School were chosen to participate in the survey which will be conducted by Texas A&M University through the Department of Health and Human Services.
“They randomly picked the schools across Texas and they’re looking at sixth to 12th graders to basically get a better idea of what kids are doing with tobacco,” Health Services Director Becky Rhodes said.
Committee members were asked to look over the survey, see if there was anything questionable, or anything they would like to add.
There was discussion about adding options to the male and female on the draft survey. It was decided to look at other district surveys and see what was done and align this survey to those.
Rhodes said they were looking for a sample size of about 15,000 students statewide.
It was decided that any questions or revisions should be submitted to Rhodes by close of business Dec. 16.
The committee also elected officers.
Tom Lechtenberg was selected as chair; Shay Meyer as co-chair; and parent Sandra Mendoza as recording secretary.
