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East Texas school police chief to speak in Austin about school safety

Jacksonville ISD Police Chief Bill Avera will speak to Senate and House committees about state and federal funding for schools across Texas.

JACKSONVILLE, Texas — Schools around Texas are reconsidering their campus security after the mass shooting in Uvalde.

One local school district police chief is playing a leading role in helping them become safer places by taking his message to Austin. 

"We will be providing invited testimony on behalf of the Texas ISD Police Chiefs Association," said Bill Avera, Jacksonville ISD police chief. 

Avera will speak to state Senate and House committees this week about school safety. He said this invitation was prompted by the recent Uvalde school shooting. 

"Our school district is very similar in size to Uvalde and Santa Fe," Avera said. "So when those things happen it hits home and you realize how quickly something can go wrong."

Avera’s goal is to help reach Gov. Greg Abbott's safety goals for the next school year.  

"It redoubles everyone's commitment and efforts to ensure that our students feel safe to come to school, their parents feel safe to send them to school and the teachers feel safe to work in that environment," Avera said.

Avera is suggesting schools add sworn-in peace officers rather than teachers, outside security, or volunteers. 

"The benefit for having an ISD police department is that they are employed by the school and they are always there," Avera said. "They're accountable to the school, to the superintendent and to the board of trustees. We're always on campus, as opposed to maybe a contract officer or someone working for another agency."

But he also acknowledges the obstacles in his way like finding the funding. 

"We have many, many small districts in Texas," Avera said. "Many in our area that this would be a burden for. We will be calling on the state of Texas to work with our districts and help us get the needed funds to augment the security for our campuses."

Avera will also advocate for mental health care resources. 

"We want to get down and drill down on the front end, and see what the root causes of the issue is and how to address that," Avera said.

He also stated mental illness has been a problem since the shut down of state hospitals in the 1970s. 

"We've got to have mental health counselors," Avera said. "We've got to have school psychologist, we've got to have people that can respond to these threats and to these mental health crisis. Because we know that 90 to 95% of the school shootings that have occurred in this country were internal threats."

Avera hopes to give a voice to districts in Northeast, South and West Texas. He also said he appreciates the support from the community as he helps ensure safety within state school districts. 

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RELATED: Uvalde hires outside legal help in bid to keep records related to Robb Elementary shooting from being released

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