ECTOR COUNTY, Texas — The state of Texas has been implementing random safety intruder audits in response to the May shooting in Uvalde, and Ector County ISD has experienced some of these audits recently.
The district has seen success in every school that has been inspected so far, except for one that did not pass the state audit.
The identity of the school has not been revealed to keep it from becoming potential target, but the external doors were locked and the problem was with the internal doors. The Texas School Safety Center at Texas State is in charge of these state audits.
The state school safety audit process includes an individual walking around campus and attempting to get into the school. Assuring that all doors are locked is one of the key checks during the inspection, as well as looking the part to correctly administer the audit, while only a select few know that it is happening.
“I’m not wearing any kind of military uniform, I’m not dressed in all black, I don’t have a coat on, I don’t have a hoodie on," said Nate Turner of the Texas School Safety Center. "We want to make sure that we’ve put them at ease, we don’t want them to be nervous, we want them to understand to make sure that doors are secured or locked or that we cannot gain access and be an intruder or someone who is unauthorized to be on campus.”
After one school in ECISD failed a state audit likely similar to this, Superintendent Dr. Scott Muri said that the safety committee will meet, training will be provided and the issue will be remedied.
It is important to note that ECISD has been administering weekly safety audits by local law enforcement in every school, and these will continue.
“One of the new strategies that we implemented this year to ensure that our students and staff members remain safe on campus is a weekly safety audit," said Muri. "So, one of the ECISD police officers walks each school every single week to audit them on a variety of things. Are their exterior doors locked? Are their interior doors locked? Are students where they’re supposed to be? They check a variety of different factors at every single school, and then provide that report to the principle. And then if any corrections or adjustments need to be made, the principle is able to make those. We started that the first week of school and we will continue to do those in perpetuity.”
ECISD announced that it is hiring three additional police officers who will help with those weekly safety audits, which now brings the total to 32 officers in the district. Muri also said that the state audits should continue over the next four months, so it was a lesson learned in this situation.
NewsWest 9 reached out to Midland ISD regarding how the state audits have gone for them, but we have not heard back.