Gail Delaughter/Houston Public Media
More than nine months after Landon Payton collapsed and died during a P.E. class at Marshall Middle School, it remains unclear how exactly he died and whether the Houston ISD employees on hand that day could have saved him.
Still, Texas lawmakers have taken steps to help ensure that similar tragedies are prevented.
Lawmakers late last week passed the “Landon Payton Act” in honor of the 14-year-old student who died on Aug. 14. If signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott, Senate Bill 865 would require all public schools and open-enrollment charter schools in the state to create cardiac emergency response plans and train certain staff members and students in CPR and the use of automated external defibrillators, or AEDs.
Abbott has already signed Senate Bill 1177, which will require all schools in Texas to have their campus AEDs inspected at the time of a fire safety inspection. Schools already are required to have the devices, which can be used to treat sudden cardiac arrest.
“This bill [SB 865] is about literally saving seconds, because every second matters whenever there’s an emergency situation like this,” state Rep. Christina Morales, a Houston Democrat who represents the Payton family and supported both bills, said Monday. “And this is not only for the students but also for our school staff, so we never leave anything to chance and will make sure that all of the equipment is checked.”
The website for the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences, which for months listed Payton’s cause of death as “pending,” was updated last month to cite his cause of death as “undetermined.”
The Houston Federation of Teachers, a union that represents thousands of teachers and other employees in Houston ISD, said shortly after Payton’s death in August that a school nurse tried to use an AED on him, but the device wasn’t working. Records obtained by Houston Public Media showed the AED in the Marshall Middle School gym had expired electrode pads during an inspection three months before Payton’s death, and it’s unclear whether those pads were replaced before the student died.
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Houston ISD acknowledged a few days after Payton’s death that 170 of the 1,000-plus AEDs on its school campuses were not functioning at the time.
The school district did not comment about Payton’s cause of death. A school district spokesperson said last fall that HISD expected to be sued by Payton’s family, although such a lawsuit had not been filed as of Monday.
Regarding the passage of Senate Bills 865 and 1117, HISD said in a statement, “The Houston Independent School District places student safety as its highest priority. We look forward to working with State and local leaders as they provide guidance on how best to enhance emergency response procedures across Texas.”
An attorney representing the Payton family did not respond to a request for comment Monday.
Morales said she recently spoke to Payton’s father about the passage of Senate Bill 865 – which was authored by state Sen. Carol Alvarado, another Houston Democrat who also authored Senate Bill 1177. The former bill, if signed by Abbott, will require Texas public schools and some private schools to have a cardiac emergency response plan in place for the 2025-26 school year.
The Landon Payton Act also would require school nurses, assistant nurses, athletic coaches, P.E. teachers, cheerleading coaches, marching band directors and student athletic trainers to be certified in CPR and the use of an AED.
“I spoke to the dad today,” Morales said, “and he was so grateful that we named the bill after Landon to make sure no one ever forgets his name or what happened.”
Editor’s note: This story was updated Tuesday, June 3, 2025, with a statement from Houston ISD about the passage of Senate Bills 865 and 1177.