[ad_1]
Sarah Grunau/ Houston Public Media
As part of an initiative to bolster community safety, state and local officials on Tuesday welcomed Houston ISD students back for the first day of school at Marshall Middle School, where the memorial of a former student marks the sidewalk.
The initiative — Safe Walk Home Northside — launched after the stabbing death of 11-year-old Josue Flores, who was attacked while walking home from school in 2016. Flores’ death sparked calls for extra safety measures for students walking to and from school every day.
And as students headed back for the 2025-26 school year, officials like Houston Police Department Chief Noe Diaz, U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia and Harris County Justice of the Peace Victor Trevino III were drawn to Marshall Middle School for the 10th year that the Safe Walk Home Northside organization has held a back-to-school procession for returning students.
Stella Mireles-Walters, one of the organizers who first established Safe Walk Home Northside, told Houston Public Media there was an apparent need for bolstered safety measures after Flores’ death.
“This particular community was latent with high crime. It had been going on for years,” Mireles-Walters said. “And so I grew up in this neighborhood and I decided because I’m a believer, to come and help. A 62-year-old woman, what can I do? And I stepped in, and I started speaking to the school, to the church, to the officers.”
The organization works with law enforcement and the METRO police department on first aid training. It also works to provide free self-defense courses to the public. And as students return for the new school year, Mireles-Walters said people need to report apparent safety hazards to their local officials.
“The number of calls are going to create a chain,” she said. “And that’s what we did. A handful of five or six people, we created a chain. And now this school is an A-rated school.”
The death of another Houston ISD student, 15-year-old Sergio Rodriguez, who was struck by a train while walking to Milby High School last year, prompted plans for a pedestrian bridge near the campus as well as a a state grant program for safer railroad crossings.
Union Pacific Railroad for some time limited train operations during drop-off and pick-up times near the high school, starting one week after Rodriguez’s death in December. But days ahead of the new school year, the railroad company lifted the train traffic curfew.
In a statement to Houston Public Media, Union Pacific said a return to a normal train schedule was needed to reduce blocked crossings and congested areas.
[ad_2]
Source link
