It’s been almost three months since two major threats were made at Bowie. These threats highlighted communication issues within the campus, but the administration felt prepared for these threats against students and staff.
“Administrators, SROs, law enforcement officials, and the district had all the information they needed,” assistant principal Hector Munoz said. “We’re all moving forward and learning from that experience and we’ve changed our responses and response call times to make them a little bit shorter. We’ve tried to respond to some of the gaps that we might have had in communication, and we’ve tried to learn from some of those mistakes and make it better so that the community is aware that Bowie is a safe place to be.”
The lack of communication regarding the past threats resulted in Bowie students, parents, and administration expressing feelings of discomfort and concerns about potential threats to campus safety.
“Parents, students, staff members, and community members started to voice out concerns about allegedly seeing that one student here or letting us know of a potential threat,” Munoz said. “Everyone’s more proactive now at speaking up and saying hey, there’s something wrong here so that we can investigate.”
Since the threats at the beginning of the year, the ID policy at Bowie has been strengthened for the safety of students and staff. Every morning, a few administrators stand outside the front doors to check every student’s ID. If the student doesn’t have their ID, they can have a temporary one made for them.
“I think IDs have improved the safety of campus,” senior Georgia Schmitt said. “It’s reassuring to have visible confirmation that everyone on campus belongs here. I think the morning ID checks at the door is annoying, but it’s definitely necessary. The ID policy here is effective in the sense that it creates confirmation of who is supposed to be on school grounds, and who isn’t.”
Even though communication has been tightened and IDs are comforting Bowie students, many students still feel unsafe on the Bowie campus because of how easy it is to enter campus.
“They need to close the doors,” sophomore Genevieve Casas said. “That’s the main thing that leads to me feeling unsafe on campus. I would feel significantly safer at school knowing that the campus is enclosed and strangers can’t walk onto the school grounds at any time of day.”
Bowie administration and AISD are aware that threats against students and staff are still very possible, and they are ready to help any student or parent that feels unprotected at Bowie.
“We’re all here for your safety,” Munoz said. “You need to understand as a student, if you have a concern, you have to tell an adult, whether it’s your parent, teacher, assistant principal, counselor, or the janitor. Just let an adult know the moment something happens. We can come up with a safety plan for the student. We can ensure that that student is safe, has counseling, and that parents are notified so that we can come up with a plan to make sure that everyone’s safe.”
