The mayor of New York City, Bill DeBlasio announced that the city will deploy additional metal detectors to school campuses. The city has identified 30 campuses that will immediately see metal detectors on an “unannounced” rotating basis. There are currently 79 campuses that have permanent metal detectors as well as seven roving metal detectors in operation, police officials said.
The mayor’s decision to deploy additional metal detectors to schools comes as the number of guns found in school buildings has ticked up this school year compared with the two years before the pandemic, leading some parents and advocates to pressure the mayor to act.
In a two-day stretch last week, school safety agents recovered five guns from students. Two of those guns were identified by metal detectors, NYPD officials said. Eight guns have been recovered from students this school year through Oct. 24, up from one during the same time during the 2019-2020 school year, and two the year before that, according to police data.
The recent spate of guns found in schools follow other incidents around the country, including in The recent spate of guns found in schools follow other incidents around the country, including in Newark, where a loaded gun was brought into school, and in Philadelphia, where a student shot himself in the leg inside a school building. The school building in Philadelphia used metal detectors; it was not clear how the gun got inside.
In addition to the extra metal detectors, de Blasio indicated that the city would send extra police personnel to school buildings at the beginning and end of the day and would create 20 “safe corridors” in which police are stationed between schools and transit hubs.
I worked in a school which had a single metal detector. Despite this, an intruder entered the building, shot, and paralyzed a student. There are too many entrances and exits in a school. They cannot all be covered because of limited resources and personnel.
“Panic doors” which can be opened by students to permit intruders into the school are also a problem. Having metal detectors dispatched to schools on a rotating basis is like play “whack-a-mole” with schools, educators, and students. Hopefully, the detectors will be in the right places at the right time.
Original Source: Chalkbeat, a nonprofit news organization covering public education. ckbe.at/newsletters.
My new book, Preventing School Violence: A User’s Guide, which will be published by the end of November will address the issue of preventing school violence by providing simple-to-use, easy-to-implement strategies.