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Texas Senate bill would require schools to create threat assessment teams, report to TEA

Senate Bill 11 would create threat assessment teams that would report student incidents to the Texas Education Agency.

TEMPLE, Texas — A new bill passed by the Texas Senate Monday could place requirements on local schools, including the creation of threat assessment teams to look at student incidents. Local school districts said Wednesday it’s something they already do, but not with the Texas Education Agency looking over their shoulders. 

S.B. 11 would make several changes to school districts across Texas. Temple Independent School District Superintendent Dr. Bobby Ott and State Representative Hugh Shine spoke to KCEN Channel 6 about the bill Wednesday. 

A new bill passed by the Texas Senate Monday could place requirements on local schools, including the creation of threat assessment teams to look at student incidents. Local school districts said Wednesday it's something they already do, but not with the Texas Education Agency looking over their shoulders.

Threat Assessment Teams

The bill would require the TEA to adopt rules to establish a safe and supportive school program. Additionally, it would requires the board of trustees at each school district to establish a threat assessment and safe and supportive school team to serve their campuses. These teams would look at students making threats of violence or showing harmful or violent behavior.

Both Temple ISD's Dr. Ott and Killeen ISD's spokesperson Terry Abbott said their school districts already do this, as do many others. 

“Most districts have a district wide and campus level team,” Ott said. “We look at student infractions. We look at any misbehaviors. Then we look at how we are supporting those students.” 

The difference with the current teams, however, is that their schools have discretion on what to focus on and don’t have to report every decision to the TEA. 

Under the new bill, that could change. 

New rules would require schools to disclose all assessments, the outcome of each assessment made by the team, any disciplinary action taken, any action taken by law enforcement and several more elements. 

Ott said that could be a problem. 

“I don’t know what that report looks like yet,” Ott said. "If it’s just submitting it though our management system, that’s easy... If it is some sort of separate, formal report on each student, that would be absolutely cumbersome... And probably unmanageable.”

Bill's definition for threats are also fairly broad. The definition includes verbal threats, threats of self harm, bullying, cyberbullying, fighting, possession of a weapon, sexual assault, sexual harassment, dating violence, stalking or assault.

Shine said the bill is not clear on how schools are supposed to decide if a threat is credible enough to proceed with a report. 

“Defining what is supposed to be a credible threat for notifying parents... That’s not really clear in the legislation either,” Shine said. “It could certainly be too broad.”  

Ott said being required to separately report everything could also be an issue. 

“If you are spending all your time justifying what you are doing instead of doing what you are supposed to do then that could be cumbersome,” Ott said.

The bill would also require each district to ensure members of the team have experience in the following areas: 

  • Counseling 
  • Behavior management
  • Mental health and substance use 
  • Classroom instruction 
  • Special education 
  • School administration 
  • School safety and security 
  • Emergency management 
  • Law enforcement

Ott said one person could have expertise in multiple areas, so schools should be able to meet those requirements. 

New school resources and training

Ott said the bill would add new employees to the Texas School Safety Center and to local mental health authorities. The bill would require teachers to have training with the safety center. 

However, that raises a problem: Who pays for the training?

“It’s good training,” Ott said, “The question is, who funds that training? The bill has written that the training providers at the safety center will end up hiring, that will be paid for. That would stand to reason that the training would be free… But maybe not. I don’t know how the training cost are built into this.” 

Shine said he had the same issue with the bill. 

“What I immediately see is there is not any funding associated with this,” Shine said. “If they increase the school safety center… Is the school district paying to send the employees there, or is the state paying for the employees to go and attend?”

The bill was read in the house for the first time Wednesday, then referred to the Public Education Committee.

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