Every time there’s a school shooting somewhere in America, social media chatter sites light up with parents and community members demanding their children’s schools add even more protection. One of the most common calls is for schools to install metal detectors at every door.
Parents and community members are rarely aware of all the security measures in place at local schools. When Plainfield dealt with a major cyberthreat several years ago, I chaired a school board meeting packed with frightened and angry parents. When several demanded we share every detail of what we were doing to protect students, I refused. It’s not that we had anything to hide, I explained to the attendees. But if we tell the “good guys” everything we’re doing, the “bad guys” are going to be able to use that information to create havoc.
Many of the folks demanding metal detectors suggest school boards really don’t care about the safety of kids, or that they must be too cheap to get the same equipment you walk through to get into Indiana Fever games. School administrators and board members don’t share their enthusiasm, because metal detectors are not an effective solution given the nature of today’s schools. It comes down to logistics … and a little bit of common sense.
It’s true that metal detectors can find guns, knives, and the occasional ninja star (which teens are now able to use here in Hoosierland thanks to a recent state law). Unfortunately, they do nothing about the long list of other threats American schools are encountering these days. Plus, several downsides render detectors impractical and ineffective in a school setting.
For metal detectors to be effective, two things must be true. First, each must be staffed by an operator, with another operator present to handle secondary screenings with a wand to keep things moving. That’s a significant staffing issue. Tell teachers to do it? Your community’s dedicated professional educators, who already spend their evenings catching up on what they couldn’t get through during the workday, won’t be eager to take on that responsibility. That can lead to contractual, morale, and negotiation issues (state law requires school districts to be union employers where teachers are concerned).
Second, every door that’s regularly used in the school must be equipped with metal detectors that are staffed anytime the school is occupied, and every student, employee, and visitor must be scanned. If the swim team shows up for practice every morning at 5:30, the metal detectors need to be staffed. When the tennis team runs in for a mid-practice bathroom break, they need to pass through the detectors. If the marching band returns from a distant competition well after midnight, the metal detectors will need to screen those students. Attending Sectionals? We suggest arriving at least an hour early. If screenings are not present every minute of every school day and extracurricular activity, students out to create mayhem will easily find workarounds.
Finally, think about this: Plainfield High School students arrive and depart through one of three sets of doors. In the minutes before first period, nearly 1900 students flow through those doors. Not only would forcing students into TSA-like lines leave half the kids with another tardy, but when bad weather arrives along with those kids, you’re dealing with hundreds of students soaked by torrential rains or frozen by subzero temperatures as they wait in line … and hundreds of angry parents.