Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced Wednesday a new school safety plan and proposed gun law changes, NPR reports.
The announcement comes less than two weeks after a shooting at Santa Fe High School outside Houston left 10 people dead and 13 injured, and just one day after Santa Fe students returned to classes for the first time since the shooting.
The 40-page plan includes dozens of strategies to keep students safe, such as increasing law enforcement presence at schools, training more school marshals, providing active shooter training, and “hardening” campus facilities to reduce security threats.
The Texas Legislature, which is not scheduled to convene again until January, will need to approve many of the strategies laid out in the plan. The governor could call a special session sooner, but that would be a “dramatic move” given the divisiveness of the issue, the Texas Tribune notes—particularly when Abbott is up for re-election.
“The strategy I most strongly encourage the Legislature to consider is greater investment in mental health,” Abbott writes in the plan. “As long as mental health challenges trouble our children, there will never be enough safety barriers we can build to protect our students.”
