ROYAL PALM BEACH — The new school year has brought an extra layer of security to four Palm Beach County high schools, as TSA-like metal detectors have now been placed outside the entrances of school grounds.
With more than a month of the new academic year complete, the feedback has been fairly positive.
“I haven’t heard anybody say anything bad about it,” said Sarah Mooney, police chief of the Palm Beach County School District. “It’s all been pretty positive from the students.”
With past tragedies such as the Parkland shooting in 2018 and last year’s shooting in Uvalde, Texas, still fresh on many Americans’ minds, school safety remains a top priority in Palm Beach County, with metal detectors being the latest addition to otherwise common school safety measures such as having visible identification at all times.
After some bumps in the road with the early stages of the program, which saw extremely long lines of students waiting to go through the metal detectors, the process has improved to become much more efficient and less time-consuming, according to Mooney.
She said the idea of metal detectors on school campuses has been a topic of discussion among the community for years. This year, the county decided to launch a pilot program to see if the idea is feasible.
The initial concern by parents of students and staff members at schools was that the devices would be too intrusive and invade students’ right to privacy. However, as time has passed, Mooney said those concerns have started to fade after they saw the efficiency of the program.
Jesus Armas, principal of John I. Leonard High School in Greenacres, said that his school as well as others involved with the program are constantly collaborating with one another to see if they can learn something from each other when it comes to nailing down best practices.
“The great thing is that we are all willing to help each other out,” Armas said.
Armas described what the daily process of students walking through metal detectors entails.
“We don’t ask students to empty their pockets,” Armas said. “There are some items that we know are going to set it off. We know that all the Chromebooks that the kids have will set them off, so the procedure requires them to take their Chromebook or laptop out of their bag, put it on a table, slide it over, and then go through the metal detector.
“If it doesn’t go off, we’re not even going in your book bag. Even when we do go in [the student’s] book bag, we’re only going in that main pocket. So we believe the system is unintrusive and certainly does not invade the students’ personal space.”
Mooney said that the initial plan was to only test the new technology at John I. Leonard High School, before three additional schools volunteered to participate as well. Those three other schools are Seminole Ridge Community High School, Palm Beach Lakes Community High School and Palm Beach Gardens Community High School.
Armas said that Chief Mooney and the other schools involved set up a weekly meeting to discuss how things have progressed with the program. For John I. Leonard High School, Armas viewed the program as successful so far thanks in large part to “zero defiance” from the students and indicated that no weapons have been discovered on his campus through the metal detectors since they were brought in.
Armas said that he once held the opposite viewpoint of metal detectors and thought they would be unnecessary to have on a school campus.
“I felt that the technology wasn’t right and really, frankly at the time, it wasn’t something as a society we really wanted,” Armas said.
However, he said that with the advances in security technology to prevent intrusiveness throughout the years, he has had a change of heart on the matter and thinks now is a good time to have them in place.
“In the last couple of years, with the new better technology and with the fact that now everywhere you go, whether it’s a ballgame or a concert, or the Kravis Center, or the South Florida Fair, everywhere you go you’re going through metal detectors,” Armas said.
“I believed that society now sees it as something that can be the norm.”
Armas also acknowledged the importance of other safety measures being in place along with metal detectors.
“In my mind, a school is safer with the metal detectors than without,” Armas said. “Having said that, if metal detectors were the only thing we did for safety, then that wouldn’t be good enough.”
Armas said that his school opens its doors at 6:45 a.m. instead of 7:00 a.m., as was the case before the metal detectors, and insisted that this change ensures every student makes it to class on time and that the new security is not to blame for tardy students.
“The truth of the matter is, if students are late, it is not because they are going through those metal detectors,” Armas said. “If they’re late, it’s because they’re pulling up to the curb late.”
Having metal detectors on school campuses is a massive change from what many are used to. Armas, who has worked in the county school district for over two decades, acknowledged that this new security layer is unprecedented territory that could not have been predicted several years ago, and is going to take some getting used to.
“The only thing I’ve predicted accurately in all my years is that I would lose my hair and it would turn gray,” Armas said. “There’s no way that when I became a principal 18 years ago, we could predict where we are now. It’s a different world.”
As for whether this security system will be expanded to county elementary and middle schools in the near future, Mooney painted a slightly grim picture.
“I think that would be a ways down the road,” Mooney said. “Just on the supply chain and trying to get all that equipment in and training that many staff members, and especially with little kids. If you do it in an elementary school, the time constraints might be a little different than a high school where you can direct a little bit better.”
However, when it comes to all public high schools countywide, expansion is certainly on the horizon, and could even occur before the end of the school year, according to Mooney. Ultimately, she said those decisions will be made in conjunction with the Palm Beach County School District Board.
This story was produced by MediaLab@FAU, a project of Florida Atlantic University School of Communication and Multimedia Studies. The reporter can be reached at .
