Mom wanders through Texas school to underscore security concerns

SAN ANTONIO, Texas -- A Texas mother said she wandered around her child's high school campus unstopped for more than 20 minutes to highlight concerns about school safety.

Stacey Alderete posted videos to Facebook Tuesday as she walked through a South San Antonio Independent School District campus dressed as a student and carrying a backpack.

She said that four officers are assigned to cover a school comprised of nearly a dozen buildings, not all of which can lock automatically if needed.

Alderete, a former school board trustee, blamed the apparent lapse in security not on the officers themselves but on the district management.

"I proved yesterday just how vulnerable to violence or school shootings our children are at the high school. My video speaks volumes," Alderete said at a public school board meeting the next day. "I want to make clear that this in no way is the fault of our amazing officers and the chief but has everything to do with the leadership of our district. "

She criticized the school board for the money it spends on training-related travel, maintaining that those funds would be better used to beef up school security.

After the incident came to light, SSAISD police cited Alderete for criminal trespassing, though she maintains she did nothing criminal.

In a statement to the San Antonio Express-News, superintendent Dr. Abelardo Saavedra called Alderete "a disgruntled former board member that lost her last election and has spent a lot of her time since then trying to create havoc for the school district."

"If she would spend the energy in working with us in improving programs...things would be more productive and would better serve the students," Saavedra said.