EPISD responds to safety concerns at new northeast El Paso PK-8 school

EL PASO, Texas -- Bobby Joe Hill Pre-K-8 is one of the El Paso Independent School District's new, consolidated elementary and middle schools. The school was placed on lockdown briefly Thursday after reports of a weapon on campus. This lockdown came as several security issues prompted people connected to the brand-new school to contact ABC-7.

“There's a lot of concerns from teachers...they feel very unsafe and kids feel unsafe," a former employee of the district said.

That former employee of nearly four years said there have been multiple occurrences that he feels put students and staff in danger. He agreed to describe what he witnessed and experienced if he could hide his identity.  We'll refer to him as "Steve."

Steve described a fire drill that occurred back in September that felt went awry. He said the students inside the portable classrooms did not exit partly due to a lack of communication. “We did not hear anything in the portables as far as alarms, sirens or or even intercom," he said.

ABC-7 asked officials about fire drill incident. The chief operations officer for the district, Alan Wiernicki, confirmed it. He said the PA system in the portables tha was not active for "a short period of time"

"We determined that there had been a leak, I think in the cafeteria area that fried out some of the PA system. Anything that's related to security, we treat as an emergency work order and it's repaired either the same day or as soon as parts are available," Wiernicki said.

“With a district this size, it's inevitable that you're going to have lapses that occur, maintenance problems that occur," Wiernicki said.

According to Steve and others ABC-7 spoke to, another lapse at the school is in the electronic access control. The system was installed at every door throughout the campus.  

With the swipe of a key card, you’re able to enter the buildings, or a classroom, but Steve said the cards don't work, so key card holders still can't get into the building from the outside.

“If they have kids outside. how are they going to get them inside the building? if there's an active shooter on site?," Steve said.

District officials, including the chief of police, acknowledged the key cards won’t work until construction on the school is complete which wont be until the start of the spring semester, January 4.

Everyone must enter through the main campus doors and administrators staggered teacher schedules so when they’re not teaching, they can monitor doors. 

“With the recent tragedies, we've really been focusing on incorporating electronic access control all of our exterior doors across the district," Wiernicki said.

That focus isn’t just at Bobby Joe Hill, school officials within Texas are locking all entrances as a part of a new state directive on the heels of the Uvalde school shooting.

The Texas School Safety Center and the Texas Education Agency are working on visiting schools in El Paso at random to make sure those doors stay locked otherwise known as intruder detection audits. 

“Part of the methodology through this process is we aim to reach 100% of the school districts in the state of Texas by the end of this year and that also includes charter school districts, and 75% of the campuses," said Kathy Martinez-Prather, director of the Texas School Safety Center.

Martinez-Prather said these audits are conducted weekly.

She added the audits focus on several different areas: whether or not someone can get into the building without using the main entrance, exterior weekly door sweeps - which is a new state requirement, directives on locking enclosed classroom doors during school, and how the schools conduct visitor check-in and check-out. The goal is to have teachers and staff normalize these measures and keep external threats out.

Martinez-Prather could not comment on which schools will be or have received an audit already, but she did say it was likely they've been in El Paso.

While everyone’s safety is the overall goal, Steve is hoping the basic security needs are met at Bobby Joe Hill. 

“If we didn't learn from the incidents we've had in the past, God forbid, our kids, our staff, and parents or anyone around the school will probably end up getting hurt.”