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In the wake of the deadliest school shooting in state history, the Texas Education Agency plans to check whether hundreds of thousands of external school building doors lock properly before the next school year begins.

TEA Commissioner Mike Morath told Texas senators Tuesday that the agency will review external entry points of every school in Texas, which is about 340,000 doors. It will evaluate school facilities to determine what repairs may be needed to secure campuses. There will also be a review of each district鈥檚 safety protocols and meetings held between state officials and each district鈥檚 school safety committee.

Morath鈥檚 comments came during a Texas Senate committee hearing about the shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, during which a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers. At the same hearing, Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw said the and police could have stopped the shooter three minutes after arriving. McCraw also told lawmakers the teacher who taught in the conjoined classrooms where the shooting occurred had flagged to the school administration that the door would not lock.

The Uvalde shooter , according to school surveillance footage. Authorities said a teacher closed the door and the automatic lock failed.

There are more than 1,200 school districts in Texas and , but Morath on Tuesday promised lawmakers that his agency鈥檚 plans to review doors and safety plans will be completed this summer.

In 2019, the Legislature passed , which tasks the Texas School Safety Center with making sure school districts have adequate . The agency can call on the TEA to act as conservator to make sure plans are up to standard and school districts are compliant, Morath said.

Morath said the TEA has rule-making authority over things such as safety drills and threat exercises. The agency will come back to lawmakers once it has a dollar amount for how much hardware upgrades would cost, he said.

鈥淲e are moving with a great deal of speed on this,鈥� he said.

In the weeks since the tragedy in Uvalde, questions have swirled around and whether some lives could have been saved if officers confronted the barricaded gunman sooner. Authorities have shared conflicting information about who was in charge, who confronted the shooter and when. A debate over whether the locked classroom doors could be breached gave way to the discovery that they may never have been locked at all.

Morath spent much of his time Tuesday talking about SB 11 and what it did to 鈥渉arden鈥� schools, plus what powers it grants to him and to the safety center. Gov. and other Republicans have touted the bill. But, the law may .

Schools didn鈥檛 receive enough state money to make the types of physical improvements lawmakers are touting publicly. Few school employees signed up to bring guns to work. And many school districts either don鈥檛 have a plan for responding to an active shooting or produced insufficient ones.

there is no indication that beefing up security in schools has prevented any violence. Plus, they said, it can be detrimental to children, especially children of color.

Morath also gave more information on the 18-year-old shooter. He started being chronically absent in the sixth grade and in his last year at Uvalde High School, he failed every class except web design. Bettencourt asked if anyone on the school鈥檚 threat assessment team should鈥檝e noticed the chronic absenteeism and truancy as a red flag.

In Texas, it is mandated that schools have a , which determines the risk an individual poses and what the appropriate intervention is.

鈥淎ny kind of ongoing absenteeism, I wouldn鈥檛 call it threat assessment,鈥� Morath said. 鈥淭he safe and supportive team should notice that and then begin the process of intervening.鈥�

This article originally appeared in , a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy.

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