making school buildings safer it was a
priority for lawmakers after the school
shooting in parkland and again after the
Santa Fe High School shooting governor
Abbott announced a plan addressing
largely unprotected portable classrooms
found at hundreds of local campuses but
months later there is little to show for
increased security Channel two
investigator Mario Diaz checked dozens
of campuses tonight he's revealing a
safer alternative and pushing state
leaders to explain what happened to the
money set aside for school security the
school shooting in a suburb of Denver
Colorado
few places in this world are darker than
the images and calls for help from a
child facing a school shooter she's
afraid to talk they're hiding right now
I'm very sorry miss Hart but your
daughter has been a victim of gun
violence she was shot
there you go your world just could split
open Rhonda Hart's life was fractured
last May when her daughter Kimberly was
murdered inside Santa Fe High School it
was terrible it was the worst day ever
I've investigated lots of acts of terror
and small confined spaces Fred Burton
with the Austin based intelligence
company strapped for says an active
shooter inside of a school is a
situation like no other that poses a
very unique protective security and
protective Intelligence threat Burton
met with channel 2 investigates to
address a school security flaw we've
been examining for months what would you
do if you had an active shooter in a
portable building god forbid what if
these are the kinds of rough questions
that parents don't like to ask teachers
don't like to ask
school administrators don't like to ask
politicians don't want to talk about
channel 2 investigates examine multiple
school campuses with portable classrooms
the sole protection for most a simple
fence access to many of these portable
classrooms could be had in less than a
minute or in the case of these mere
seconds anyone wanting to do harm can
get to that portable building on two
sides maybe without even being detected
Chris triticum represents multiple
teachers unions in the area he has
concerns for children and teachers
trapped in portable classrooms they are
definitely exposed to harm we identified
1647 portable classrooms currently in
use by seven area school districts Robin
Cummings with Vanguard modular says
these buildings are vulnerable
Vanguard modular is trying to get ahead
of it they build portable classrooms
with enhanced security features
including bulletproof glass however
there is one big problem we're offering
the services but unfortunately the money
is not there to to capitalize on it they
disrespect that money to be there
someday
it's a great question I know it's I'm
not even seeing a hint of it coming we
need to do more than just pray for the
victims and their families governor Greg
Abbott has called for action two times
this year following February's school
massacre in parkland Florida
he asked the Texas Education Agency to
address school safety one recommendation
include provisions for increasing the
safety of portable buildings we asked
the governor's office to tell us what
came of that idea we have not heard back
security doesn't come cheap and it
doesn't come from anywhere you have to
have funds to do it after Santa Fe
another action plan proposed by the
governor this one came with a price tag
of 110 million dollars the 42 page
report highlighted the hardening of
schools calling them soft targets
however unlike February's two-page
letter following parkland the second
report never mentioned portable
classrooms Burton says securing every
classroom will take commitment from
parents school districts and most
importantly Austin it's gonna take a lot
of hard questions being asked like you
are as to what do we do about this
threat until it happens
the governor's action plan has a number
of safety initiatives listed total price
tag 110 million dollars with 70 million
of that already available or will soon
become available and in 2019 the
governor plans to work with the
legislature to secure an additional 30
million dollars now bill and Dominique
the governor was unavailable to
accommodate us for an interview however
we do plan to follow up with him in the
near future as for this report we have
put it up on the investigates section of
click2houston.com a lot of people will
read that Mario I'm sure thank you