OISD staff to carry concealed handguns after Uvalde shooting

Staff members at all three Olney Independent School District campuses will be trained to carry concealed handguns in the coming school year, and the district already has adopted most safety measures recommended by local law enforcement and state education officials, Superintendent Dr Greg Roach said.

Dr. Roach reported the plan to the board of trustees June 27 at the first meeting of the OISD board after 19 students and two teachers died in a school shooting in Uvalde May 24.

“We will have the staff carrying concealed handguns,” Dr. Roach said after the meeting. “The Texas Education Agency has done a lot. They are going to be doing some things statewide.”

OISD has been implementing these recommendations for several years with the help of Olney Police Chief Dan Birbeck, who also conducts active shooter training for public entities and businesses across the region.

“The police department and the school district are working very closely together to ensure measures are being taken to heighten our security posture,” Chief Birbeck said. “We are also working together to look at best practices and work together on a risk, threat and vulnerability assessment to continue to improve on existing security measures.”

Chief Birbeck said the police department will train school staff and eventually conduct a citywide first responder and emergency services drill “so that we’re training in the environment we are operating in.”

OISD has already added keyless entry to buildings and self-locking classroom doors, as well as full-coverage security cameras in school buildings

“We are doing 90 percent of what they’re recommending, it’s been ongoing for years,” Dr. Roach said. “We just add a little bit more each year.”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has instructed Texas State University’s Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training (ALERTT) programs to consult with all school districts across the state after the shootings at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde.

Police and first responders have been criticized for waiting over an hour to breach the classroom door where the 18-year-old gunman was holding fourth-graders and their teachers hostage.

A July 6 report by ALERTT found that law enforcement missed several opportunities to stop the gunman before he entered the school, and that school security doors were not functioning properly. The report also criticized the responders for having multiple teams of officers that were not coordinating with each other. Because of these failures, it took police more than an hour to enter the classrooms and neutralize the attacker, the report said.

“ALERRT teaches that first responders’ main priority in an active shooter situation is to first Stop the Killing and then Stop the Dying,” the report said. “Ideally the officers would have placed accurate return fire on the attacker when the attacker began shooting at them.”

Chief Birbeck said the Uvalde shootings exposed gaps in active shooter training that he intends to rectify in training armed school staff and first responders.

“There is a lot to be learned from that, to break it down and teach the officers what they are up against,” he said. “It is hard for small agencies … to balance their budgets with training time and equipment. That will always be the struggle. It is my pledge that Olney Police Department receive appropriate training and equipment to appropriately respond to that type of threat.”