Salem-Keizer School District officials are expanding weapon detectors to all district high schools this school year after what they described as a successful pilot at South Salem High School. District leaders announced the expansion Friday morning. They said specific rollout dates for each school would be communicated by high school principals “in the coming weeks.” “Given the realities of the moment that we’re living in, I believe that weapon detection is the most effective, comprehensive additional next move that we can take to provide greater assurance that our students and staff are in a safe learning environment,” Superintendent Andrea Castañeda said in an interview with Salem Reporter. The announcement follows multiple incidents this school year where students have brought guns onto high school campuses. At West Salem High School, a student was arrested with a gun outside the school on Sept. 27. The incident triggered a lockdown at West and four nearby schools. At McKay High School, a student was arrested Oct. 7 after school officials found a gun during a bag search at the start of the school day. “These measures are what schools can do. They are not a solution to community violence. Community violence is a public health issue,” Castañeda said at a news conference Friday. She wore an orange shirt reading “Enough. End gun violence,” while making the announcement. A security officer at South Salem High School monitors a weapon detector on Friday, Sept. 13, 2024. (Rachel Alexander/Salem Reporter) The expansion covers the district’s six traditional high schools — McKay, McNary, North, South, Sprague and West — as well as the alternative Roberts High School campus on State Street. There are no plans to implement weapon detectors at smaller high school campuses, including Early College High School, the Career Technical Education Center and Roberts at Chemeketa, said Chris Baldridge, the district’s director of safety and risk management. An expansion to middle schools is likely next year. The weapons detector expansion will cost over $1.5 million over five years, Castañeda said, with about half that total coming from a legal settlement with e-cigarette company Juul that’s intended to prevent vaping in schools. The remaining money will come from the district’s existing risk management budget, which is funded by a mix of grants and general school operating money. She said there will be some ongoing operating costs for software and licensing, but those aren’t yet known. Schools will use Evolv weapon detectors after piloting that system and another system, OpenGate. The same detectors are used at entrances to Salem Hospital. The expansion will come with other operational changes, including restricting which doors students can enter and exit the school from during the day, and putting window film over windows to make it more difficult to see inside the schools. The expense comes following a year of tens of millions of dollars in budget cuts where hundreds of educator jobs were cut. Former Superintendent Christy Perry in March 2021 ended the district’s contracts with local police departments for 11 officers stationed at local middle and high schools at a cost of about $1 million a year. Castañeda said to her knowledge, no other school district in Oregon has implemented weapon detectors across its schools. South’s pilot Weapon detectors were piloted at South Salem High School starting in late May. Castañeda said she’d been considering them for district schools earlier in the year, but stepped up a timeline after a sophomore at South shot three students at Bush’s Pasture Park in April, killing one. School officials said they didn’t know if there was a gun on campus prior to the shooting. Students and school employees were surveyed about the detectors before implementation, and again this fall. READ IT: Weapon detector pilot review Pilot data from South showed tardies increased slightly during the first five weeks of school. An average student was tardy to about 18 of every 100 classes this fall, up from 15 last year. But attendance at South also increased slightly during the pilot, to 85% this fall, and the school saw a decrease in “behavior incidents” this fall, including fights, while other high schools saw an increase. The data comes from a report presented in a closed school board session on Oct. 8. Salem Reporter obtained the report through a public records request. School board members were briefed on the decision to expand weapon detectors, but did not vote on it. Board Chair Cynthia Richardson, a former high school principal, expressed support during a Friday news conference. “I think our district is headed in the right direction by taking action to put more safety systems in place,” she said. “This is a real time example of taking difficult but necessary action to support the safety of our schools.” South Salem High School Principal Tara Romine takes a Chromebook from a student going through the weapon detector at South Salem High School on Friday, Sept. 13, 2024. (Rachel Alexander/Salem Reporter) During the six-week pilot, no firearms were detected at South across 56,660 scans with the Evolv detector, the report said. Knives and vape pens were detected and confiscated, though the report doesn’t say how many. About 6% of scans flagged students for more screening, typically opening their bags or backpacks for inspection by a school security officer at a neighboring table. Survey data showed a majority of students before the pilot disagreed or were neutral about whether they’d feel safer and more welcome with detectors in place. Following the pilot, nearly half of students said detectors helped them feel safe, and 28% were neutral. Responses from school employees showed a similar shift. But a sizable minority of students, 33%, said they disagreed or strongly disagreed following the pilot that detectors made them feel welcome at school. About one-quarter disagreed the detectors helped them feel safe. The addition of weapon detectors at South prompted relief and support from some parents and community members, while drawing pushback from others. Leaders of the Alianza Poder, a group of nine local social service organizations that work with Latino and farmworker families, opposed weapon detectors in an April 4 letter authored by leaders of Latinos Unidos Siempre. “Weapon detectors are a Band-Aid solution that will come at the expense of improving our education system, access to student and family resources, as well as safe and welcoming schools,” the letter said. “What we need instead is investments in programs, education, and resources that prevent any form of violence and address student disengagement.” Student advisers to the school board said they supported the expansion. Kaiden Armstead, a senior at McKay, said he and his classmates are eager to get detectors because of the prevalence of firearms. “Kids are definitely talking about it all the time … I’m really happy to see the district is moving forward on this,” he said during the news conference. Sofia Castellanos, a senior at South, said she’s regularly stopped by weapon detectors, usually for an umbrella or her instrument. She said because of those stops, she’s gotten to better know the school’s security staff and agreed with district leaders that those interactions are generally friendly and don’t presume a student is carrying a weapon. “It’s really cool to start to build that connection with Mr. Scott,” she said, referring to a security officer. Principal Tara Romine told Salem Reporter earlier in the school year that she’d so far found the detectors helpful for welcoming students to school in the morning. Students who pass through the detectors have to take laptops out of their backpacks and pass them to a staff member, often Romine, who stands at the detectors in the morning. She said the brief interaction gives her a chance to connect with students, something that was difficult previously because students were generally on their phones or had headphones in. Castañeda said feedback from the survey and South staff alleviated her biggest concern — that weapon detectors would make students feel unwelcome at school. Now, “I feel that there is a pathway … that can actually improve the quality of our students’ experience in school by helping them feel secure and safe at the same time that we increase the number and the quality of adult interactions that they’re having every day,” she said. Contact reporter Rachel Alexander: [email protected] or 503-575-1241. A MOMENT MORE, PLEASE– If you found this story useful, consider subscribing to Salem Reporter if you don’t already. Work such as this, done by local professionals, depends on community support from subscribers. Please take a moment and sign up now – easy and secure: SUBSCRIBE. The post Salem-Keizer will expand weapon detectors to all high schools this school year appeared first on Salem Reporter.