Gov. Greg Abbott appointed a new member to the Texas School Safety Center (TxSSC) Board of Directors and reappointed five others on Wednesday, including one current member of the Dallas Independent School District’s (DISD) Board of Trustees.
The move was announced in a press release, stating that DISD Trustee Edwin Flores, Texas District Court Judge James Mosley, social studies teacher Noah E. Perez, Wylie High School Assistant Principal Michael Slaughter, and former small business owner and education specialist Jill Tate are reappointed to the board until February 1, 2025, pending approval by the Texas State Senate.
New to TxSSC’s Board of Directors is Melissa Dunbar, an elementary school principal in the Medina Independent School District.
TxSSC is a research center that operates as a “clearinghouse for the dissemination of safety and security information through research, training, and technical assistance for K-12 schools and junior colleges.”
Abbott’s announcement comes on the heels of two school shootings in North Texas earlier this week, one in Dallas and another in Arlington, both covered by The Dallas Express. In both cases, the shootings occurred outside but still on the respective campuses.
At a press conference on Wednesday, DISD Superintendent Stephanie Elizalde emphasized the fact that a gun did not get into the building in the Dallas shooting. A student was instead shot in the parking lot, sustaining a wound to their arm.
Most recently, TxSSC was involved in conducting impromptu intruder audits to see whether districts and campuses were following security protocols and making sure nobody could gain unauthorized access to school buildings. TxSSC’s report on the audit found that auditors managed to get inside school buildings almost 5% of the time, as previously reported in The Dallas Express.
The Dallas Express reached out to Trustee Flores for comment on his reappointment as well as the recent shooting at Thomas Jefferson High School but did not receive a response by press time.
