Texas schools have until fall to be ready for new law

FORT WORTH, Texas — This fall, Texas public and private schools will be healthier and more heart-prepared — or at least they should be. 

Senate Bill 865, also known as the Landon Payton Act, requires schools to have a Cardiac Emergency Response Plan, CPR and AED certification for certain employees, and conduct drills to test their emergency response.

While Fort Worth Independent School District students at South Hi Mount Elementary got excited about their Kids Heart Challenge kick-off, Sarah Thieroff made sure staff at another Fort Worth campus knew how to react in the case of a sudden cardiac arrest.

“We’ve had many, many school districts reach out, especially since Senate Bill 865 passed but to date we have 29 Heart Safe school Districts that have gone through the full Heart Safe designation process just in our program at Cook Children’s,” said Thieroff, Project ADAM (Automated Defibrillators in Adam’s Memory) Texas program coordinator at Cook Children’s Medical Center-Fort Worth.

Project ADAM is named after 17-year-old Adam Lemel, who died in 1999 after collapsing during a high school basketball game.

The school at the time didn’t have an emergency team or an AED, also known as an automated external defibrillator.

“So, the story could have ended there in 1999, but Adam’s parents, Patty and Joe Lemel, went to Children’s Hospital Wisconsin and said, ‘We don’t want our son’s story to end here. We want to go on; we want to help others across the country have a reversed process and a plan in place,’” said Thieroff.

Project ADAM is in over half the states across the country, providing free cardiac emergency preparedness resources and training to schools and communities.

“Over 23,000 children suffer an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest,” said Hilda Colunga, community impact director at the American Heart Association.

In 2024, 14-year-old Landon Payton died after the AED at his Houston middle school wasn’t working.

This led to legislation signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott last fall, requiring all Texas public and private schools to have a Cardiac Emergency Response Plan, mandated CPR and AED certification for certain employees, and drills to test emergency response. 

“Everyone always thinks it starts with the nurses, nurse’s assistants, and our athletic and PE coaches, and that is not the case. It’s everybody’s responsibility in our district. All the way from our students to every staff member as well,” said Dr. Karen Molinar, the Fort Worth ISD superintendent.

By fall 2026, all Texas schools should follow this new law.

“What’s interesting about Landon Payton is that with that Act, we’ve been trying ever since 1999 to get schools to have a team, have a plan, do a drill but now that the senate bill requires it, schools have to do it to be compliant. So that really helps our case. Because now it’s no longer put on the bottom of the to-do list. It is a priority now because they have to do it to become compliant with the Senate,” said Thieroff.

Cook Children’s said it currently has more than 800 Heart Safe schools and 29 Heart Safe School Districts in its Project ADAM program. Texas has more than 9,000 public schools and more than 1200 public school districts.