Two Pinellas County schools are pilot testing new weapon detection systems to see how such security measures would work across the district.
But one of the schools participating in the program, Palm Harbor University High School, faced significant entry lines at at least one of its checkpoints during the first two days of testing, leaving some students standing in the rain.
School District Director of School Safety and Security Sean Jowell said delays are to be expected in the early days of the testing process.
“We were told by the vendors that the first week or two, you’re going to see what we call, for lack of a better word, a backlog of students,” he said. “The process is new to them. It involves understanding, and we’ve gone over it very closely each day to see where we could gain greater efficiencies.”
Jowell added that students are only being asked to remove laptops, three-ring binders, eyeglasses and umbrellas before going through the detectors. Other objects, like cellphones, belts and keys are not required to be taken off to improve efficiency.
But some students reported being asked to remove objects as small as pens from their bags.
Jowell said Wednesday that the situation had improved compared to earlier in the week.
“There was a little bit of a backlog at the (checkpoint) that we had the problem with… that was fixed and that was completed on time without a problem,” he said. “So we do know where we need to increase in some areas in order to provide those efficiencies.”
National Association of School Resource Officers Director of Operations Mac Hardy said the long lines, although a nuisance, are necessary to ensure the safety of students and staff.
“We’ve all been through TSA at the airports, and we know that takes time because you have false positives that occur,” he said. “And you have to address those false positives to make sure that everybody is following the rules and not having contraband on them when they enter the school.”
Jowell said the other participating school, Gibbs High School, is not facing any delays so far, as it’s testing a different system.
He added that if the pilots are carried out as expected, they will be implemented in more schools across the district.
“We specifically picked these two schools because of the size of the campuses, the number of checkpoints, and the population of the students,” Jowell said. “If we get to a point by doing these checks through the pilot to where the systems work at our largest campuses, then the thought process would be that it would work as efficiently at our middle schools and our elementaries, which are smaller site plans, smaller infrastructures, and smaller student populations.”
Testing is scheduled to continue until the end of the school year on May 29.
