SAN ANTONIO — Northside Independent School District Superintendent John Craft informs the community about state and education updates through his web series “Catching up with Craft.”
He leads the fourth-largest school district in Texas where school safety is a top priority.
“In this last legislative session, there was an increase in funding per student. It still falls short of covering the cost,” Craft said.
NISD in San Antonio, like every Texas public school district, must follow House Bill 3, which mandates an armed officer at each campus. Craft says that costs much more than $20 a student. Then, there are other safety measures.
“The door monitoring alarms, security vestibules are our priority like the one here at Glenn Oaks we are prioritizing fencing,” Craft said.
Inflating cost of materials hinders school safety initiatives.
“From a general construction standpoint, that’s a 1% a month escalation — which is 12% a year,” Craft said.
The costs, he says, go up faster than funding.
When House Bill 2 passed last year, the state doubled school safety funding from $10 to $20 per student and $15,000 to $33,450 for the campus.
“For us to meet the needs adequately of providing safe schools, it would be about $100 per student,” Craft said.
Some districts are turning to other options to better fortify schools. Security expert Kumar Sokka says districts have filled the gaps with modern technology that can sense weapons or even vaping.
“So that has been driving significant amount of investment from schools and funding from states,” Sokka said.
He says it can be cost effective for districts who may not have available funds.
“A lot of schools do have access control and if you were to modernize the technology to get the latest software, that could be in that range that is allocated,” Sokka said.
Craft says his district, which has over 90,000 students, requires more than just modern technology. The district’s police department has over 100 officers. His district, like others, is in a deficit and is trying to keep up.
“What we don’t want to do is overpromise and underdeliver,” Craft said, especially when it comes to school safety.
