Alamogordo High School to Introduce AI Weapons Screening

Alamogordo High School to Introduce AI Weapons ScreeningPhoto byAlamogordo Town News

The rising threat of youth violence and juvenile victimization has been a topic of several recent news reports hosted by AlamogordoTownNews.org and KALHRadio.org

With Alamogordo's rising crime rates, safety and security is always top of mind for teachers and administrators in the public schools, rather in a large city like Albuquerque or a small city like Alamogordo student safety is a constant consideration.

The Alamogordo Public School System has recognized the importance of safety with a loss of life of students outside of the school confines. Beginning wirh Pam Renteria's tenure as APS Superintendent, and forward to today, under Interim Superintendent Crabtree, a focus on ensuring best in class safety protocols and technologies are a consideration of extensive research, importance and are ongoing.

As such Alamogordo High School is following the lead of Rio Rancho Public Schools of New Mexico to bring an added layer of security to student beginning this school year. In 2023 students, faculty and visitors at V. Sue Cleveland High School started experiencing Evolv Express®, an AI-based weapons detection security screening system, when the academic year commenced in August. The district plans to add 20-plus Express systems to its schools over the next few years and based upon success rhere and elsewhere Alamogordo High School is implementing the technology this school year.

Evolv technology is in more than 465 school buildings across 34 states, including 11 of the country’s largest school districts. Express screens hundreds of thousands of students daily.

Evolv-commissioned Gun Violence in America: A Survey on Americans’ Anxiety revealed that three out of four parents have a child(ren) that have anxiety about school shootings, and 54 percent report that their child(ren)’s anxiety has increased in the past three years. The survey also found that three out of four Americans feel safer at places that screen for and do not allow weapons inside.

To ensure the safety of public school students and staff, Evolv Express detectors will be used at our Alamogordo High School campus starting in the 2024/2025 school year.

The rising threat of gun violence in schools creates anxiety that keeps both students and staff from doing their best work. Establishing a safe and welcoming school atmosphere can improve students' performance while attracting and retaining exceptional staff. Traditional metal detector weapons screening amplifies security anxiety by creating friction and generating frequent false alarms, leading to inconvenient delays and the risk of embarrassing and possibly biased secondary searches. Evolv Express presents a more effective and dignified solution, fostering a safer, more inclusive environment that bolsters academic achievement and staff retention per APS statements.

Evolv Express systems improve security by reliably detecting concealed threats and help enable a directed search, leading to a more dignified and respectful screening process that helps empower security professionals and enhances the visitor experience. Express is proven to operate up to ten times faster than traditional metal detectors with its dual-lane, free-flow entrances and fusion of new sensor technology and artificial intelligence. The system is built to spot weapons while ignoring most harmless personal items while visitors walk through at a natural pace.

How It Works

The extremely low-frequency radio waves (ELF) used by the Evolv Express induce magnetization and/or currents in metal objects passing through, both of which can be characterized via magnetic polarizability tensors. Using physical models, the Express recovers the data from the magnetic polarizability tensors and extracts features from them, which in turn correlate with the physical properties of the object including volume, shape, conductivity, and permeability. Using large databases of threats, including firearms, metallic IEDs, and other threats as well as databases of typical benign objects, including keys, cellphones, belts, shoes, coins, tablets, and laptops, the classifier is trained to distinguish between the two classes via machine learning techniques.

Comparable Use of Extremely Low-Frequency Radio Waves

Evolv Express uses extremely low-frequency radio waves (ELF) in the range used by Electronic Anti-Theft Systems (EAS), widely deployed in retail settings for loss prevention.

The technology is used not only in schools but at many professional sports stadiums around the nation.

The company was founded in 2013 and in the past few years Evolv has rapidly climbed to the top of the stadium security scanning market with numerous deployments, especially in larger, NFL-size venues. The company went public in 2021.

The technology is expensive the most expensive option (several sources put the costs of an Evolv Express system at around $2,500 to $3,000 per month, under a 4-year lease) m

According to Evolv, one Express system can replace 10 traditional metal detectors.

As in any marketplace, with more success comes more scrutiny, and over the past year Evolv has had to answer to some very public criticisms of its equipment for failure to detect certain weapons. A well-publicized incidentinvolving a knife that went undetected by Evolv systems at a high school in Utica, New York, was followed by some lesser-known public criticism of Evolv from NBA team security professionals at a summer stadium technology conference.

But to Evolv’s credit the company has responded to such incidents, adding another level of granularity to its scanning capabilities to finally win approval from the NBA for its use in league stadiums. Since adding that capability this past fall, Evolv has already added several NBA teams to its customer list, including the Denver Nuggets, the Boston Celtics and the Houston Rockets.

Is this the technology that is best for Alamogordo High School?

Time will tell, but it is a positive sign seeing the Alamogordo Public School System invest in best in class technology to ensure the safety and security of our Alamogordo Tiger students.

For more information from APS on this implementation visit https://www.alamogordoschools.org/