Uvalde School Principal is Suspended Because She Knew About Existing Problems

Screenshot from Twitter

The Uvalde Elementary School will start the 2022-2023 school year without its former principal who was suspended and placed on paid administrative leave. The school district didn’t go into any details but there was cause for concern prior to the massacre on May 24 this year.

Principal Mandy Gutierrez was aware of some of the security problems the school had prior to the May 24 massacre.

The police chief Pete Arredondo is also on unpaid leave since June. The Uvalde Independent school district has asked that he should be fired. Arrendondo has been singled out as the cause for the deaths of 19 students and two teachers.

Brett Cross, the father of Uziyah Garcia who was killed in the massacre, said no one on the board reached out to him. He wants the district to own up to the incident and take responsibility for its failure.

Cross said:

"You care more about your damn selves than you do for our children. Why have y'all still not taken accountability for y'all's mess-ups? Can any one of y'all look me dead in the eyes and say, 'Look, we messed up?'"

Pastor David Myers told the board:

"These parents are still hurting. And they want answers."

Uvalde is a district on the outskirts of San Antonio, Texas. The school is starting repairs on some of the issues identified in the shooting. An audit will start on Tuesday and look at the Wi-Fi and communication problems that were identified. New video cameras are getting installed this week.

Room 111 had a broken lock

Gutierrez and her assistant knew about a broken lock to room 111 prior to where the gunman entered. They knew about the problem but did not put in a work order to have it fixed.

On the day of the attack, an alert was sent to teachers, but every teacher was aware due to problems with the communication system. Some teachers also did not have access to their phones.

Governor Greg Abbott said there were disturbing issues after he read the report on the incident.

He said in a statement:

"The findings in their investigative report are beyond disturbing and raise serious concerns about the response that day. There are critical changes needed as a result of the Texas House’s findings."

Former NFL and MLB player Bo Jackson and an unknown person helped pay for the funeral costs from the massacre.

Do you think Texas schools overall need updated security systems?