Students at Newport News\u2019s Richneck Elementary School returned to campus Monday for the first time since their 6-year-old classmate shot his teacher. Much has changed since that horrific Jan. 6 event, including a new high-tech \u201cweapons detection\u201d system the young children now have to pass through \u2014 one that promises to ferret out threats in backpacks and pockets without the hassles of airport-style screening checkpoints. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Such a threat was carried into the school nearly four weeks ago and went undetected despite reportedly multiple warnings<\/a> to school leaders that the first grader was armed. Though school safety experts said that human errors led to a violence prevention breakdown, much of the district\u2019s response hinges on unproven technology that\u2019s being installed on every campus, starting with Richneck. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWalk-through metal detectors will be in place and used for all students, faculty, staff and visitors to Richneck upon school reopening,\u201d school board Chairman Lisa Surles-Law said earlier this month<\/a>. \u201cAs of yesterday, funding for all 90 state-of-the art metal detectors has been obtained.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Get stories like these delivered straight to your inbox. <\/em>Sign up for The 74 Newsletter<\/strong><\/a><\/p> The district spent more than $1.5 million on Opengate scanners<\/a>, the district spokesperson told The 74. The devices come from Ohio-based metal detector manufacturer CEIA, which says its latest hardware is far smarter<\/a> than the metal detectors of yesteryear. With \u201cextreme threat item discrimination,\u201d the sensors are designed to distinguish cell phones, water bottles and other innocuous items from \u201cmass casualty shooting weapons\u201d without getting tripped up by false alarms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The CEIA scanners, and similar devices that have become a trendy segment of the $3.1 billion-a-year school security marketplace, purport to solve roadblocks that have long kept traditional metal detectors from widespread adoption in schools: long checkpoint lines, the need to empty pockets of change and keys, separate X-ray scanners for backpacks and purses, and an appearance that evokes a prison. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet as districts nationwide shell out millions of dollars on weapons detectors from CEIA, Evolv Technology and competing vendors, school safety experts warn the devices have significant limitations that can leave serious threats undetected. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Campus security personnel must decide whether to use sensitivity settings that could miss certain weapons in the name of expedience or to be more thorough but get besieged by false alarms from commonplace school supplies like laptops and three-ring binders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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