Texas announces new 'Sentinel' school safety system

AUSTIN, Texas - With a new school year just weeks away, Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced a new platform to centralize school safety checks and other information for districts.

The platform, called Sentinel, was designed by the TEA with the input from superintendents around the state.

"Built for Texas, by Texas," said John Scott, the Chief of School Safety and Security for the TEA. "I don't think there's another state in the country that has anything like this. I think that, we're kind of leading the way on this."

The tool will allow districts to provide a range of data to the TEA, from door checks to threat assessments and intrusion detection audits.

"It's at no cost to them and it's not new to them. Last year, we used the intrusion detection dashboard and the Sentinel. It's really an evolution of the intrusion detection dashboard," Scott said.

Following the mass shooting in Uvalde, districts were ordered to improve their security plans and focus on hardening schools. but in the midst of those changes, we have reported on security breaches where guns were found on school campuses.

Sentinal allows dsitricts to make direct reports to the TEA, which will manage the platform.

The tool also provides resources and assessments for districts to do to make sure schools are secure.

"It does intrusion detection audits, district vulnerability assessments, emergency management, technical assistance and training and behavior threat assessments," said Scott. "Sentinel provides a program to guide them through a behavior threat assessment and standardize it throughout the state. So all school districts are doing it the same way."

While the platform handles the data-driven side of safety, funds have also been dedicated in recent years to harden school buildings with technology and other safety tools.