Cy-Fair ISD Chief of Police Alan Bragg joined the department in 2012.[/caption]In his 45th year of law enforcement, Cy-Fair ISD Chief of Police Alan Bragg has announced that he will be retiring from his position this June. He was hired as the district's first chief of police in 2012, joining the department after serving as Spring ISD’s chief of police for 21 years.
“The selfish side of me would love to keep working here,” Bragg said. “This is where God was leading me to go, but my wife retired from teaching in 2011. She’s been waiting on me to retire.”
From the time he joined the staff, Bragg led efforts in transitioning away from contracting services with Harris County Precinct 4 constables, hired much of the existing staff and built the department from the ground up.
“We have a great team of professional law enforcement officers who came to us from many difference agencies to get on board with the new department,” he said. “We are out there taking care and protecting our facilities around the clock.”
CFISD is now receiving applicants for his position, officials said.
Safety and security update
Since passing a bond in 2014, CFISD officials have been working hard to install new measures that enhance safety and security districtwide.
The bond allotted about $60 million of the total $1.2 billion that was passed for safety and security upgrades. Bragg said this includes providing 40 additional cameras to each high school, 30 to each middle school and 15 to each elementary school as well as upgrading all outdated analog systems.
“We’re very conscious about how we spend that money,” Bragg said. “We want to make sure students and staff have a safe place to go to school every day.”
Alarm systems are also in the process of being upgraded from analog to digital systems. The district has their own plans to build four radio towers to allow officers full coverage in schools and on buses, Bragg said.
In addition to cameras, each school will have a secure vestibule with bullet-resistant glass implemented as campuses undergo renovations. Visitors must either have a card to access the building during school hours or will be visually identified and buzzed in before they are allowed to enter the main part of the school, Bragg said.
In 2015, 639,636 visitors entered CFISD schools during the day. After adding visitors from after hour events, Bragg said more than 1 million people visit campuses every year.
The district’s police department has two officers in every high school, one in each middle school and several additional officers patrolling elementary schools at any given time throughout the school day, Bragg said.
“If students and teachers and parents don’t feel safe in our schools, it probably hinders the educational process if they’re worried about not being safe,” he said.
Since launching for the 2012-13 academic year, the department has grown from 19 officers to 76 with room to grow. Officers monitor the district 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
“There’s a feeling out there sometimes that maybe it’s not a great time to be in law enforcement, but I still think it is,” Bragg said. “We’ve got more construction coming, more schools coming, so we’re still wanting to be at one [officer] per thousand [students].”
