BUCKEYE, AZ — The Agua Fria Union High School District spent $500,000 to install new weapons detectors at its schools as well as hire more security guards in addition to all the other safety measures they have.
In the last 18 months, before the district put in weapons detectors, Megan Griego, the district’s senior executive officer, told ABC15 they had seven known instances where students brought weapons onto campus.
“Now that we’ve installed weapons detectors at our four high schools, the number of incidents since the beginning of this year are down to zero,” she said.
The district is working to install weapons detectors at the last of its five high schools, planning to have it done by the end of the school year.
Griego said the district gets to calibrate the detectors for their sensitivity and it can detect different types of weapons. This includes large knives, handguns, and assault rifles, Griego said.
“Our weapons detectors unfortunately can’t stop every crime from happening, but it is one other measure of time we have on our side. This is part of a comprehensive security plan for our school campuses,” she said.
The district already has five unarmed, trained security guards at each of its five schools. They’re working on hiring two more for each school, so each building will have a total of seven unarmed security guards.
The district says they also have a contract school resource officer at each of its schools as well.
Braden Marchese, a sophomore at Verrado High School, tells ABC15 it was “weird” at first when the detectors were installed. Students only get to go through certain entrances when they arrive at school in the morning, all needing to go through the weapons detectors.
“I felt like I was going into the airport every day at school. It was a little weird, but now I don’t notice them anymore. They’re a lot easier to go through,” he said.
Students do have to take out their Chromebooks and metal water bottles out from their backpacks and hand them to the security guard before walking through the detector, otherwise, the alarm will go off. If the detector does go off when the student walks through with their backpack, the guard will search the student’s backpack. Students also have to show their school IDs, too.
“I think it’s really bad. I feel like we shouldn’t have to have metal detectors at school, and we shouldn’t have to do any of these things,” Marchese said. “We should feel safe at school, but because of what’s happening, I feel like these need to put in school.”
