Texas Education Agency launches new system designed to enhance safety across schools

AUSTIN (KXAN) – Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced Thursday a new system called Sentinel designed to be a “one-stop shop” for school safety and security needs across all Texas school districts.

The Texas Education Agency’s (TEA) Office of School Safety provides the new system. The office said it will improve threat assessment processes and enable monitoring of a school district’s adherence to safety and security policies across the more than 1,000 school districts in the state. It hopes this system will ultimately enhance safety in Texas schools.

“Sentinel is an innovative program that is going to be a one-stop shop for everything school safety,” School Safety and Security Chief John Scott told KXAN.

Before Sentinel launched, safety systems and approaches differed across school districts, Scott said.

“Sentinel will standardize [processes] so everybody will [operate] the same way throughout the state,” he said.

Scott said, for example, districts would differ in how they conducted behavioral threat assessments. These assessments proactively attempt to identify people who could pose threats to a school and seek to intervene before escalation, according to TEA.

The new system standardizes those assessments so that they are conducted and reported in the same way across all Texas districts.

“I would support anything that improves school safety, especially along the lines of prevention, or enhancing communication between the school and law enforcement,” said Shannon Holmes, executive director of the Association of Texas Professional Educators.

Holmes agreed that having all efforts related to school safety in one place will help school leaders stay organized and keep students and staff safe.

“When there’s disorganization or lack of clarity in a highly charged, stressful situation, mistakes can be made,” Holmes said. “I hope this system provides school administrators the ability to make fast and accurate decisions when they need to make them.”

This new system was made possible because of House Bill 3, passed in 2023, which increased funding for public school safety.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KXAN Austin.