Parents Push For Metal Detectors In D

HIGHLAND PARK, IL — Parents of students at Highland Park and Deerfield high schools are evenly split on whether they favor the installation of metal detectors.

But students and staff oppose requiring everyone to undergo airport-style security screenings at every entrance to both Township High School District 113 schools by a 2-1 margin, according to a recent survey conducted on behalf of the district and presented to the board this week.

At a contentious District 113 school board meeting Tuesday, a group of parents demonstrated outside in favor of increased armed security and weapons screening at the schools, while several students spoke out against metal detectors.

Just as they were at the Highland Park High School graduation ceremony at Ravinia Festival, attendees were screened by metal detecting wands and their bags were subject to search. Several speakers at Tuesday's meeting pointed out the irony of the district implementing more visible security measures at off-campus events than at school.

Following an April 4 incident where a student brought a gun to Highland Park High School, leading to a hard lockdown for about 90 minutes — at a campus where many students had just six months earlier survived a mass shooting — the board hired the firm Public Opinion Strategies to survey parents, students and staff.

According to the results of the survey, installing weapons detection systems that scan for weapons but do not require people to empty pockets, like systems at Wrigley or Soldier fields, was much more popular than traditional metal detectors, with support from 81 percent of parents, 70 percent of students and 66 percent of staff.

Jim Hobart, the principal researcher on the survey, said the response rate was remarkably high. While a normal rate is about one response for every 150 points of contact, pollsters got more than one response per every nine cell phone numbers they tried.

While parents split with students and staff on the metal detector issue, all three groups said they would "feel safer" if there were metal detectors or some other kind of weapons detection in place at school.

As for how it would affect the atmosphere at school, parents were almost evenly split, with about a third saying it would improve, a third saying it would be worse and a third saying it would not change. Nearly half of students and staff said some time of detection system would change the atmosphere at school for the worse.

When asked to consider the cost of personnel to oversee the use of weapons detection, it was still supported by 70 percent of parents, 60 percent of students and 54 percent of staff.

But when respondents were asked whether they would be willing to risk cuts to extracurricular activities, they turned against spending on new security measures — 57 percent of parents and 68 percent of students and staff opposed the installation of either metal detectors or weapons detection systems.

"This phenomenon or this kind of inconsistency is something that we see all the time in public opinion polls," Hobart said.

"In some ways you want to say, 'Hey, this is inconsistent data.' Because you have people saying 'no' to metal detectors, 'yes' to weapons detection systems, but 'no' to paying for either," he said. "Very common to see that in public opinion research. Respondents, no matter the issue, are very rarely fairly consistent. The one thing that is consistent is their inconsistency."

Paul Timm, director of education safety for the Dublin-based security firm Allegion, gave a presentation to the board about how to evaluate security systems.

Timm, who has conducted about 2,000 school security assessments and written a book on the subject, said the two areas that protect people the most are access control and communications, while fear is the number one factor driving districts to install a weapons' detection system.

"All of security is risk reduction," Timm said. "We can never have perfect security there's no such thing as zero risk, and so we try to put things in place, knowing that, in the school setting, people are the number one asset that we're trying to protect."

When assessing which security solutions to implement, Timm said new technologies can sometimes quickly become out-of-date.

"The issue is — especially with artificial intelligence and emerging technologies — is that something we get today can be antiquated in a very short amount of time, and I see that all the time when I'm in schools and I find systems that are in closets, or stored improperly, or no longer being used, or were brought in, and now an issue came up and they're taken back out," Timm said.

"There is quite a history of technology, whether it's video surveillance or metal detectors, that we would say, 'Whatever even happened to that brand that used to own the market?'" he said. "So many of them can be here today and gone tomorrow."

Earlier: After Student Brings Gun To HPHS, D113 School Board Discusses Security

District 113 Communications Director Karen Warner told Patch the additional security at the meeting was the result of a reported threat.

"District 113 received a report that at least two individuals planned to bring guns to the meeting to prove how easy it would be to bring guns on to D113 property," Warner said in an email. "That is why people were wanded for weapons coming in, why there was extra security as well as extra police presence at the meeting."

Several parents who protested outside the board meeting in favor of increased school security also spoke during the portion of the meeting reserved for comments from the public.

Suzanne Wahl said her daughter spent two hours on the floor praying during April's lockdown.

"How the heck do you think I felt about that? And instead of taking action, you sent a survey. How much of our money did you waste on this?" Wahl said, speculating that board members spent more on the poll than it would have cost to buy eight metal detectors.

Jenny Harjung said she would be able to slip an AR-15 pistol with a folding stock and a 30-round magazine and sneak it into a school in her purse, or a backpack, or under a coat.

"Imagine this was in the kid's backpack in that barricaded room. You know what happens? That room becomes a death trap. So all 20 of those kids and teacher are dead, under a minute, potentially," Harjung said.

"So you know what? Everything you're doing: the threat assessments, the school shooting drills — which again, oftentimes the shooter's in the in the drills, or learning the drills — all those things you guys are doing are great, but I would imagine it's kind of a no-brainer at this point that the number one line of defense should be having a weapons detection system to keep weapons — whether they're knives, whether they're AR-15 pistols, whatever they are," she said. "The first line of defense should be to keep those weapons out of the building, then you can do the mental health, you can do the threat assessments, whatever it is you want."

Anna Neblo, a junior at Highland Park High School, said installing weapons detection systems in District 113 schools do not serve their intended purpose and would provide a false sense of security.

"My most important concern is avoiding discriminatory treatment within our institution. I predict that these systems will be applied differentially across the student body in ways that do not promote the overall safety of our community, but serve to stigmatize and burden students unjustly," Neblo said.

"I don't want to live and go to school in a community that that creates invidious distinctions between us. No student should feel targeted or persecuted simply for walking through the doors," she said. "We do not need Band-Aid solutions that will only serve to re-traumatize the healing community. Every student who attends our school deserves to learn in a space where they are unburdened by their trauma and free from unfair practices."

Spencer Sabbath, a recent Highland Park High School graduate and gun control activist, said the fight to end the epidemic of gun violence feels like a hopeless one.

Sabbath said security measures — like the identification sign-in required at HPHS after last year's mass shooting or the clear backpacks required at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where a former student there killed seven and wounded seven others in 2018 — are "performative solutions to make community members feel safer, while common sense quickly wipes away the façade with the knowledge that anyone with the will to cause harm in our school could not only push past security with ease, but make students in line for such measures their primary targets."

Weapons detection systems, he said, "are expensive and fear-mongering theatrics meant to disrupt the gun violence prevention movement."

Board president Dan Struck read a statement on behalf of the board at the beginning of the meeting.

"The board will continue to approve expenditures for enhanced security and safety measures consistent with the best available guidance. As for other security measures, 113 is considering the available options and no option is off the table," Struck said.

Some of those additional measures are currently undergoing feasibility testing on an ongoing basis, according to the board president.

Struck said board members and school administrators are committed to making decisions based on the best available factual information and expert guidance.

"Any suggestion that the [District] 113 board and administration do not take security seriously is personally offensive. We are parents, relatives and friends of the families of 113 graduates, current 113 students and future 113 students. Sitting on this board, each of us embrace the fact that our high schools are central to the lives of our shared communities," he said.

"It is deplorable to suggest that any of us on this board are callous toward the safety of any of the children in our schools."