Hempfield schools adding six more weapons detectors to district buildings

They new Open Gate Weapons Detectors might look like metal detectors — but they’re a little bit different.

“They’re deterrents to keep weapons out of schools,” said Dr. Mark Holtzman, Superintendent of Hempfield Area School District.

They’re a battery operated, mobile weapons detector that scan people for weapons they may be carrying into a building — in this case — a school.

Since the start of this school year — Hempfield has been trying out six of them, randomly, at different buildings.

“Random searches are useful and helpful, but to me, we can be safer,” Holtzman said to Channel 11′s Andrew Havranek.

That’s why Holtzman said the district is spending about $103,000 to purchase six more of the Open Gate Weapons Detectors, bringing the district’s total to 12.

The goal is to have them permanently in place at the two middle schools, Harrold School, which holds 9th graders, and the high school.

One of the initial reasons the district purchased the first six was because of an incident last school year.

Three students were caught bringing guns to the high school, and exchanged them on property.

“Realistically, it does give peace of mind,” Holtzman said.

The weapons detectors allow students to get off the bus or out of their cars and walk into the building without having to take things out of their pockets or their bookbags.

There are some things — like their laptops, that do need to come out of their bags.

“Stanley cups, Yeti cups, MacBooks, Chrome Books. We have Chrome Books at the district, so those will set it off,” Holtzman said.

It’s a learning curve for everyone involved, including the teachers and staff. That’s why the district is also offering a stipend of $2,500 for 20 to 30 staff members to be trained and monitor the weapons detectors at the four schools

Once those are all in place, the district will look at adding them to elementary schools and then for extracurricular activities like football games.

“There’s going to be bumps along the road, with, you know, kind of getting children through in the mornings. Sometimes cooperation isn’t the easiest, but for the most part, we’re pretty excited about putting this in place,” Holtzman said. “In our school settings, we often times here unfortunate things on social media when we have a deterrent for weapons that are the building that we’re able to kind of continue on without having to think much past where we are with threats may say.”

The six new weapons detectors are expected to arrive early next week.

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