Metal detectors - what's the latest on their effectiveness and ease of use?
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Anonymous
| Now that the metal detectors have been up for some time, how are kids liking them? Have the long lines died down? Any difficulty still getting through them? How about the other doors without metal detectors? Are they now closed during the school day? |
Anonymous
| At our secondary, kids are going in and out of other doors all day long. Total farce and waste of money. |
Anonymous
| I work at a middle school. It takes tons of staff to get the kids through but they're getting to class on time now. They start their day being yelled at and treated like criminals, welcome to school. I want to see data on how many weapons or dangerous items FCPS has found with this nonsense. And yes, there are a million cases of people coming in and out of other doors before, during, and after school without screening so WTH. |
Anonymous
Same. My school has quite a few trailer classrooms, so anyone with first/second block in the trailers never uses them. A good number of kids are still opening side doors for late friends to save them from having to go all the way around the school and through the detectors too. Kids go outside for PE, for trailer classes, to academy, to get something from their car between classes, etc. They only have to go through the detectors between 7:30 and 8:00 am. The rest of the day they just buzz in from any entrance or are let in by friends. The lines have died down, but they are preventing absolutely nothing. Yay, waste of money. |
Anonymous
I asked my admin that today. In the 2 months it's been running, they haven't found anything noteworthy at our school. |
Anonymous
| The weapons detectors are a great idea with great intention, but they are clearly executed terribly in true FCPS fashion. If only the school board and top leaders could use common sense and planning to implement very expensive policies competently. And why do we keep voting for this school board? |
Anonymous
|
It's theatre, to appease the squeaky wheels who claimed they were necessary.
Total waste of money, see all the previous responses as to why |
Anonymous
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My high schooler starts his day in a trailer, so he never goes through them. By the time he has to go into the main building, he just walks in a side door with everyone else.
When I drive past the school near start time, I don't see long lines anymore. I don't know of that means they've sped things up, or if it just means that 3/4 of the kids are bypassing them. |
Anonymous
Serious question: How could they be executed better in schools with exterior classrooms (Modular’s, trailers)? Those kids have to go in and out multiple times a day. Bathrooms, lunch, office passes. How can you assure me the kid coming to my trailer (door opens to the outside) has gone through the detector and picked up nothing between their scan and exiting the building to come to me? How can you confirm students aren’t stashing contraband around exterior classrooms, picking it up midday when they go outside for 5th period, and bringing it back in for their lunch block in the middle of 5th? In a perfect world students would enter the building for the day and never leave, but that’s not reality. As long as there are ancillary buildings, the detectors make no sense, unless every child gets a personal escort the moment they leave the building. |
Anonymous
| My 7th grader described as security theater |
Anonymous
|
Question, how does a metal detector stop
a kid with a semiautomatic weapon? It’s all theater because it doesn’t. The hundred kids in line patiently waiting to get in are sitting ducks, the kid with the gun just shoots his way in and chaos ensues. A crazy kid who wants to do harm isn’t deterred, a criminal minded kid who wants to bring a knife to school to do damage isn’t deterred. They find a way. But hey some contractor got a sweet deal in selling some really expensive equipment to the government, plus training fees, and a multi year service contract so there is that I guess. |
Anonymous
| My 10th grader said the same - it's a joke. He uses a different entrance to avoid the lines in the morning. |
Anonymous
|
While I think my kid has adapted to the change, I think it causes unnecessary stress at the beginning of the school day.
Our MS has two entry doors/areas: Bus and Walkers and Kiss and Ride. You aren't allowed to go to the Kiss and Ride line (which is around the back of the school and carrying significantly less volume) if you are a walker, no matter the size of the lines. From what I understand, they allow the bus riders to jump ahead of the walkers. My kid (a walker) was told to wake up 15-20 minutes earlier so that wouldn't be an issue. He already wakes up at 6:30 - not happening. 7:27 seems to be the magic time everyone is supposed to be in the building. If you enter by that time, you have three minutes to go to your locker and get to first period. I'm not sure, short of running, that is humanly possible. No weapons found to my knowledge. |
Anonymous
| Still a pointless waste of money. Just like Reid. |
Anonymous
| Even if the scanner beeps and turns red, students are not getting a secondary screening. They just get waved through, according to my son. That’s how they are making it go faster. Total waste of time. |