A CT school district is considering weapons-detecting tech. Some say it would harm students of color

Amid a wave of school threats , one city is looking to increase security protocols by potentially installing weapon detecting technology at its schools. Many parents and teachers say they do not want it.

Joseph Listro, the president of the Consolidated School District of New Britain Board of Education , said the board could vote as soon as Nov. 4 to decide whether the district will install metal detectors and or weapons detection systems at any or all of the city’s schools.

According to the district, a recent survey of more than 900 New Britain community members found that 87% of respondents support the installation of weapons and metal detection technology in high schools. Approximately 85% support the technology in middle schools, and 74% said the technology should be installed in New Britain elementary schools.

A community forum on the subject Tuesday night told a different story as nearly every parent, grandparent, teacher and Common Council member who approached the podium said they opposed the technology.

Last month, New Britain’s Vance Elementary School went into lockdown after main office staff received a phone call claiming that an armed intruder was inside the school. The alarming episode corresponded with thousands of threats made to schools across the state and country that have surged in the days and weeks after the Apalachee High School shooting in Georgia on Sept. 4.

Superintendent Tony Gasper said the district’s interest in weapons detection systems is not a response to that incident.

“What’s critical to know is that this conversation is not new,” Gasper said. “More than a year ago, the board received results from a very thorough security audit … since then, we’ve been working slowly but steadily on security improvements. The idea of metal detectors was part of those recommendations the board was asked to consider.”

As a mother, Bulaong Ramiz said “What happened at Vance was probably the scariest moment of my life,” however Ramiz said she remains “unequivocally against” metal detectors in schools.

Ramiz and others expressed concern about the impact metal detectors would have on New Britain’s Black and Latino students. As one mother explained, “Students shouldn’t walk into schools and feel like they’re walking into a prison (as) opposed to a learning environment.”

“There needs to be more conversations about how communities of primarily Black and brown folks (and) low-income communities are faced with criminalization, whether or not there is criminality present,” Ramiz said.

Other concerns included the number of open doors at New Britain High School and whether limiting entrance points to zones with metal detectors would create long lines.

Many teachers and community members said they were skeptical that weapons detectors would improve safety in New Britain’s schools. Instead of investing in costly technology, they said if the district wants to prevent school threats and shootings, they need to invest in mental health resources and support for students.

“When I envision our students walking into a school and the first thing that greets them is not our educators who love them (but) a metal detector, it’s a reminder that they’re not safe,” Jennese Birritteri said.

As one of the sole voices speaking in support of the technology, Latavia Zeno said she hoped metal detectors would help catch students who bring nicotine and THC vapes into school.

“The children (are) out of control,” Zeno said. “(If) they come into the school (and) they bring in these vapes, the vapes are metal, they’re going to be detected. Anything that’s inside the bag that’s not supposed to be in, it’s going to be taken out. And then we will have less of the trouble.”

Others worried about the message metal detectors would send to prospective residents and families.

Deivone Tanksley Sr., the founder of New Britain Legacies Youth Development and Basketball Program, said he chose not to enroll his son in Hartford Public Schools, where his mother lived, after Tanksley said he learned the school had a weapons detection system.

“As soon as they said they had metal detectors, I went the other way,” Tanksley said. “That’s the perception that New Britain is going to be known for.”

Tanksley and others at the meeting said they would feel differently about the technology if New Britain schools had problems with students bringing weapons to class.

“If we were standing here today and we had victims of gun wounds and stabs and weapons, then it is a different conversation of how we need to spend the money to protect our kids (with) medical detectors,” Tanksley said.

In 2018, the Courant reported that two fourth-graders were caught with a knife and a boxcutter at New Brittain’s DiLoreto Magnet School. According to an investigation conducted by the district, one of the students had threatened to kill his classmates and rape a teacher .

Gasper declined to comment on whether any other incidents have occurred in the district.

“It’s a matter of security, so we don’t talk about security publicly,” Gasper said.

At the meeting, district leaders showed two advertisements from Evolv , a company that provides AI-driven weapons detection. According to Evolv’s website , the systems use electromagnetic sensors and video “to pinpoint and distinguish a wide variety of potential threats from many common everyday items, such as phones and keys.”

In the videos, students took out their laptops and walked through the Evolv sensors. Staff monitored the system through tablets that display real-time footage and threat alerts. When a potential threat was detected, students were directed to a secondary screening area where staff conducted a full-bag search and a body screen with a wand metal detector.

During the presentation, Academic and Accountability Officer Tyrone Richardson described Elvolv as “one of the leaders of the nation” for weapons detection setups and protocols.

Richardson clarified that the district is not making a recommendation about the technology, stating “This is not something that we are recommending we use here. This is just an example of what (a weapons detection system) could look like.’”

In recent years, Evolv systems have come under increasing scrutiny. In May, the Boston Globe reported that the company, which leases its technology under 4-year contracts that can cost schools up to up to $30,000 per year for one unit, was the subject of an ongoing Federal Trade Commission investigation and a Securities and Exchange Commission inquiry. The Globe also reported that stockholders filed a class action lawsuit against the company alleging that “Evolv executives made ‘false and deceptive statements’ about the capabilities of the company’s products.”

In October of 2022, a high schooler in Utica, New York was stabbed by a 17-year-old classmate who carried a hunting-style knife through their school’s Evolv sensors, undetected. According to a report by Spectrum News , the incident occurred just months after the Utica City School District spent $4 million to install Evolv systems in each of its 10 schools. The victim filed a lawsuit against Evolv in March.

According to a 2022 investigation by the BBC , Evolv sensors “failed to detect large knives 42% of the time.” In April, The Verge reported that “in the seven months that the Evolv scanners were active (in a New York City Hospital), 50,000 of the 194,000 scans resulted in a positive alarm — 85% of which were false positives. Most of the actual positives were triggered by police officers; just 295 were triggered by civilians carrying knives, guns, or weapons.”

In February, Evolv posted a press release claiming that the company “has been the target of a short seller campaign, coordinating with certain media outlets, who are incentivized to discredit the company, misrepresent facts, and promote misinformation.”

Evolv said their systems are “specifically designed to detect guns but will also alert on many types of knives and some explosives.” However, in the same press release, the company also stated that “Evolv customers are keenly aware of the fact that safety is never absolute.”