By Wilton Johnson
LISD's Brian Bowman says the removal of hall monitors does not affect school security.
"The hall monitors aren't in the classroom, they're strictly there in between classes monitoring the halls making sure students get to class on time. Once school starts the hall monitors are not in there," Bowman said matter of factly.
While Wednesday's teacher stabbing death at John Tyler wouldn't have been prevented by hall monitors, Bowman says it did make the district take time for introspection.
"Whenever something like this happens, you step back and you think is there something we can do differently since this did happen in a district similar to us," Bowman continued.
Like most East Texas school districts, Longview has security cameras, and photo ID scanners. What no one has is a crystal ball.
"A school district can do so much, we have campus security we have student resource officers throughout entire campus, we have teachers in hallways patrolling areas." he said.
Bowman says LISD is ready to lend district resources should TISD need them. For now, however, they're just "there".
"A lot of our staff members are close with their staff members, so it's sadness. You want to comfort and do anything you can to help that district."
