Augusta County School Board approves purchase of eight additional weapon detectors

Lina Portman1 week ago

0 2 minutes read

VERONA — The Augusta County School Board unanimously approved spending $149,707.35 for eight additional weapons detectors for school buildings at its meeting Thursday night.

The money is a one-time grant for school safety and security, funded by both state and federal funds. The award is based on the total number of schools, composite index, number of buses, responses to state safety surveys and student enrollment, according to Assistant Superintendent Doug Shifflett.

Each unit is estimated to cost $18,500, including batteries, chargers, stabilizing plates, test tubes and shipping, according to Shifflett. The school division will decide how to use the grant money left after the units are purchased, Shifflett said.

He told the board the grant funds could be used for equipment purchases and installations, software purchases, on-site planning and training to improve the safety and security of public school buildings.

Once the units are purchased, all Augusta County middle and high schools will have weapon detectors in their school to use at entrances and as needed for extracurricular events, according to Shifflett. This includes the opening of two new colleges in August.

A spokesperson for the school division told the News Leader that the detectors were used on a limited basis during extracurricular activities during the last school year.

But are schools safer with these units?

School security professional calls gun detectors 'security theater'

Last summer, when Augusta County Public Schools purchased its first such units, The News Leader contacted Ken Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services. Trump spent 30 years in the school safety business.

He added that such units do not necessarily make schools safer, but simply give the appearance of a safer school.

“What we're seeing is that many, if not most, school districts are purchasing these weapon detection systems to solve a political or school community relations problem as much, if not more, than a security problem. school,” Trump said.

Trump said many school officials are under enormous pressure to make sure their schools are as safe as possible, and one way, perhaps the easiest, to do that is to get “shiny objects that you can point to.” That’s something parents can see.

And if there isn't a system at the doors every time people enter the building, including at sporting events, band concerts, and other extracurricular activities, then it doesn't really help .

“In essence, it's what we call security theater,” Trump said. “It creates a perception, a sense of increased security, but it doesn't necessarily make you safer.”

Nikita Ermolaev, a research engineer at surveillance research group IPVM, told The News Leader in July 2023 that the use of the term weapons detectors is simply a marketing ploy and that his company refers to the units as smarter metal detectors.

“We believe that calling this system a weapons detector is misleading, because you can make a weapon that does not contain any metal objects and it will easily pass through the system without being detected,” Ermolaev said. “Because these systems are designed to find metal targets. »

Plastic and liquid explosives or other weapons with minimal metal can escape detection, he said.

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— Patrick Hite is a reporter at the News Leader. Story ideas and tips are always welcome. Contact Patrick (he/him/his) at [email protected] and follow him on Instagram @hitepatrick. Subscribe to us at newsleader.com

School security professional calls gun detectors 'security theater'

Lina Portman

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