Wichita high school students will have to pass through metal detectors to get to class

After a spate of brawls, school security deploying pepper spray and students arrested with guns, the Wichita School Board on Monday approved spending $1.5 million for metal detectors at public high schools.

“I tried to put myself in the parents’ positions last week, and I would have been scared,” board member Kathy Bond said. “I’d be scared with what has happened.”

The detectors will be placed at the entrances of North, South, East, West, Northwest, Northeast, Southeast and Heights high schools. Every student who enters the building in the morning will have to pass in a single-file line through the metal detectors to be checked for weapons and other large metal objects.

In the first two weeks of this school year, Wichita staff found five guns at high schools — including at two East, one at Heights and one at North, records obtained through the Kansas Open Records Act show.

That surpasses the number of guns found at Wichita schools for entire school year in 2018 and equals the number of guns found in 2020. Last year, eleven guns were recovered at Wichita public schools.

“It’s a weapons detection system designed for automatic screening of people,” said Terri Moses, director of safety and environmental services for Wichita schools. “It’s not just a metal detection system, it is a weapons detection system, and it is new — it is fairly new to the market.”

The metal detectors that the Wichita School District plans to buy — CIEA USA’s Opengate weapons detectors — are less sensitive than traditional metal detectors, allowing smaller metal objects such as cell phones or car keys to pass through without sounding an alarm.

They’re designed to detect “mass-casualty metal threats,” such as high-caliber rifles and bombs, according to the company’s website. They can also detect knives or vape pens, depending on the sensitivity settings chosen by the school district.

Wichita school district officials say the metal detectors are necessary to avoid future mass shootings and other violence.

“This is a sign of our times,” Moses said at a recent news conference.

Moses said she cannot say when the metal detectors will be in schools because of potential supply chain issues.

Students won’t have to remove their backpacks or gym bags as they walk through the metal detectors.

“The Opengate was designed really for what we call throughput, to get people transiting a lot faster than historically,” said Tom McDermott, CEIA’s school safety and security national sales manager, in a video explaining the technology. “With most detectors, you see a lot of what we call nuisance alarms. They’re not false alarms — they’re still alarming on metal but alarming on innocuous items like a water bottle or a cell phone. . . . We wanted to have that work a lot faster and a lot less nuisance alarms, so that’s the main difference.”

The metal detectors are likely to create bottlenecks at high school entrances until students get used to them, Moses said. She said she called other districts that are using the Opengate detectors.

“Basically, everybody said the same thing — that until they get used to it, you have a little gridlock,” Moses said. “You go to Wichita State basketball games, and when they first implemented metal detectors, there was gridlock. And now everybody’s very familiar with the process and there is no gridlock. We anticipate the same thing here.”

She said the district expects students to adjust to the metal detectors changes.

“For example, if somebody had a metal water bottle that set it off, just get a different kind of water bottle, and then you’re fine,” Moses said.

School staff will not have to pass through the metal detectors to enter the school.

Board President Stan Reeser said the metal detectors aren’t a “golden horseshoe” that solves all school safety issues.

“But it’s something that I feel like it’s worth the investment to give us one more piece of equipment to respond to those things,” he said.

Bond thanked Superintendent Alicia Thompson and Moses for their “tenacity to act so quickly” on the metal detectors.

“I cannot emphasize how important I think that this is for our community, for our students, for their parents, because no child wants to go to school afraid and no parent wants to let their child go to school if they’re afraid, so this is good.”

This story was originally published September 13, 2022 at 5:30 AM.