In the interest of school safety and smoother elections, the Brownsville Independent School District decided Tuesday to make Election Day Nov. 8 a non-class day for students and staff across the district.
About 25 BISD schools also serve as polling places, so the district proposed making the election the only activity that day by switching Nov. 8 with a non-class day scheduled for Feb. 13 on the 2022-2023 school calendar approved last spring.
The BISD Board of Trustees approved the change on a unanimous 7-0 vote.
After what happened in Uvalde, many parents had expressed concern that anyone could come into the schools to vote, thus potentially putting school safety at risk, board members said before approving the measure.
“I know that parents are very concerned that Election Day causes a great threat to our students,” board secretary Denise Garza said, thanking Superintendent René Gutiérrez for bringing the proposal forward.
“The intent here is to remove the students and staff from the campuses so they can utilize them for voting,” Gutiérrez said. He also noted that if schools were to hold classes on Election Day, the district would have to ask for additional law enforcement, which could be seen as voter intimidation.
Later in the meeting, school safety came up again when the board approved transferring $1.5 million to a special fund to pay for required school safety measures.
BISD is in the process of purchasing new Raptor system hardware and software for all schools to control entrance to the campuses, and new machines for all campuses to make photo IDs. The state is expected to reimburse the expenses.
Starting this year, schools across the state are required to have all school doors locked, require visitors to be granted entrance by school personnel and to require all visitors to wear photo identification badges stating their destination.
BISD has had such procedures in place for years but in the aftermath of the Uvalde mass shooting is upgrading its school safety hardware and software.
