Metal detectors top schools safety list
Campus ‘hardening’ dominates panel’s 100 ideas
Metal detectors will be at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High this fall, and a new schools safety report recommends adding them at all Broward County schools.
The recommendation is one of 100 ways to help keep students alive outlined by a task force created in the wake of the Stoneman Douglas massacre.
Other ideas in the 93-page report include adding more mental health counselors, reviewing the district’s PROMISE program and ensuring discipline is being enforced consistently. Recommendations for physical security changes include installing higher fences and considering bullet-resistant glass.
“We haven’t really focused on school hardening. That’s what we need to do to protect our children,” said task force member Max Schachter, whose son Alex died in the Feb. 14 shooting at Stoneman Douglas. “Until we do that, children will continue to die in our classrooms.”
The district sent a letter to Stoneman Douglas parents Friday saying that the district will start using portable metal detectors at the Parkland school this fall. Originally planned to start shortly after Spring Break, district officials said they needed more time to figure out logistical issues of how many gates would be open and how to avoid having lines that snake outside at the start of the school day.
The task force “strongly recommends” that the district consider metal detectors countywide but also said there may be some challenges to ensure they’re being used consistently and fairly.
“The physical deployment of these must be uniform across the district,” the report says, recommending the district study how the detectors are used in other districts with large schools. The report said the district should come up with procedures to check students, while showing respect for thier’ privacy and personal belongings.
Conducting random searches with wands could raise concerns about effectiveness and fairness, the report says.
The task force, commissioned by the League of Cities, included Sunrise Mayor Mike Ryan, Broward County Mayor Beam Furr, School Board member Patti Good and April Schentrup and Schachter, who both lost children in the massacre. Schachter was part of a group that traveled to Indiana to visit a school that has been dubbed as the “safest school in America.”
The task force met 10 times and came up with its initial list of recommendations in time for the school district and other government agencies to include proposals in the upcoming budget year. Some recommendations may be refined as new information comes out from other investigations, Ryan said.
The committee plans to lobby the state for more money.
“It’s a constitutional obligation and a constitutional right of students, family members, teachers and staff to have safe and secure schools,” Ryan said.
Good said the school district has received the report and the School Board is considering a joint meeting with the task force to discuss