School leaders say Texas’ campus safety funding doesn’t cover new state mandates

A lockdown device hangs on the wall inside a classroom at Nimitz Middle School on Sept. 13, 2023, in Odessa. (Credit: Eli Hartman/The Texas Tribune)

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State legislators made school safety a top priority this year after 19 students and two teachers died in the 2022 Uvalde school shooting. But even after they passed a sweeping bill on the topic this May, schools have been raising the alarm that the $1.4 billion approved to fund the new initiatives doesn’t go nearly far enough.