Is your school getting a metal detector?
Read on to find out ...
The Baltimore school system has released the list of 40 schools scheduled to have walk-through metal detectors installed this month. These are all schools where the principals requested metal detectors, supposedly after gathering community input. The list is subject to change if more principals decide they want metal detectors or if principals who have requested the devices change their minds.
Employees from the 40 schools are scheduled to undergo training in a few weeks, at which point installation will begin (starting, I'm told, with the Walbrook campus, which is top priority). In the weeks and months ahead, I'll be interested to hear from those of you in these schools about how the metal detectors work out.
And now for that list ...
Baltimore schools scheduled to get metal detectors, as of Feb. 1:
#434 Homeland Security Academy (Walbrook campus)
#435 Entrepreneurial Academy (Walbrook campus)
#418 W.E.B. DuBois High
#420 Samuel L. Banks High
#424 Thurgood Marshall High
#181 Southside Academy
#426 Doris M. Johnson High
#429 Vivian T. Thomas Medical Arts Academy
#78 Harlem Park Middle
#130 Booker T. Washington Middle
#430 Augusta Fells Savage Institute of Visual Arts
#419 Reginald F. Lewis High
#406 Forest Park High
#425 Heritage High
#450 Douglass High
#400 Edmondson-Westside High
#413 Harbor City High
#413 Youth Opportunity Center
#416 Digital Harbor High
#451 Central Career Center at Briscoe
#42 Garrison Middle
#46 Chinquapin Middle
#49 Northeast Middle
#80 West Baltimore Potomac Community
#82 Dr. Roland N. Patterson Sr. Academy
#209 Winston Middle
#230 Canton Middle
#263 William C. March Middle (formerly Harford Heights)
#372 Woodbourne Day
#488 Alternative Learning Center located in Lemmel
#488 Alternative Learning Center located in Lombard
#4 Steuart Hill Elementary/Middle
#51 Waverly Elementary/Middle
#75 Calverton Elementary/Middle
#95 Franklin Square Elementary
#223 Pimlico Elementary/Middle
#254 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary
#89 Rognel Heights Elementary/Middle
#201 Dickey Hill Elementary/Middle
#205 Woodhome Elementary/Middle
Categories: Baltimore City, School Safety (Or Lack Thereof)
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Comments
#205 is Woodhome (no L). And as an alum of theirs, I'm sorta depressed to find them on this list.
Posted by: steegness | February 4, 2008 11:59 AM
None of these schools are in Area 1, although a couple of them are former Area I schools, and were a bit of a surprise to the people in my office, especially Woodhome (not "Woodholme") K-8.
The offices for Areas 1 and 4 are located at the Lake Clifton campus, which is currently housing #425 and #426. I wonder if a detector will be installed at the entrance the area offices use?
Posted by: Claude | February 4, 2008 1:50 PM
Thanks Steegness and Claude for the correction on Woodhome. It's fixed now.
Posted by: Sara Neufeld | February 4, 2008 3:06 PM
Is there a problem with having metal dectors in schools? I can only see this as a good thing.
If everyone is safer, isn't that a good thing?
Posted by: bdc | February 4, 2008 5:33 PM
It will only give us a bigger false sense of security. Who will man these all day? Bag checks in the morning? It's a bad idea and only makes our kids look like criminals.
Posted by: Stu | February 4, 2008 7:18 PM
My school is on the list. It doesn't make me feel any safer.
The angry mobs waiting to fight are generally in the parking lot anyway.
Posted by: Steph | February 5, 2008 7:29 AM
Stu is absolutely right. There are too many flaws in the day-to-day implementation. Someone who really wants to get a weapon into the building will be able to do so without much effort. In addition, we're painting our students with a broad brush. Yes, there are definitely some who engage in illegal activities, but I believe that the vast majority of our students just want to come to school to get an education. We need to do more to nurture and support that majority instead of marginalizing them by making them feel like criminals.
Posted by: Avalon | February 5, 2008 8:34 AM
This has the potential to be such a logistical nightmare. As Stu points out, there is going to have to be someone to staff them all day. Bag checks have to go hand-in-hand with detectors (i.e. detectors at courthouses, airports, etc). And will every single student have to go through one entrance? Students are late enough without having to wait in line for detectors.
I tried to find any good studies that say detectors reduce violence in schools and all I could find was one saying the there were fewer weapons taken 3 years after they were installed than the first year. Not a ringing endorsement. Maybe Sara could do a story and find better research?
Posted by: Michelle | February 5, 2008 10:23 AM
The decision to install metal detectors was to be a collective decision of the principal, the SIT and the PTA(or organized parent group). Half the schools on this list don't have parent groups. So who made the decision? I am really suprised at the number of elementary schools on this list.
Posted by: OverTheTop | February 6, 2008 8:48 PM
See attached link
http://dusteye.wordpress.com/2007/03/20/nyclu-slams-new-york-city-for-%E2%80%98over-policing%E2%80%99-of-schools/
Posted by: OverTheTop | February 6, 2008 8:53 PM
I teach at one of the schools on this list, and though knives are pretty routine there and guns are found now and again, I worry about the reason kids typically bring them: they often have to protect themselves on the way to and from school. If our communities were safer and healthier we wouldn't need to make the schools more and more like prisons, which affects deeply all students, not merely malefactors.
Posted by: nyarlathotep | February 29, 2008 7:54 AM
I think that metal detectors should be installed in all schools. Public and private schools, this way every student feels safe
Posted by: tay | January 3, 2011 4:10 PM