School board answers to security concerns following gun arrest, assault earlier in the week
Posted Nov 21, 2014 11:26:39 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Yesterday it was a gun scare at Charles P. Allen High School, and earlier in the week it was an assault at Dartmouth High.
Halifax Regional School Board spokesperson Doug Hadley told the Rick Howe Show school security is a constant conversation among school administration in HRM.
He said measures are taken every day to identify threats and prevent violence, but added that features such as metal detectors may not be the cards for the region’s schools anytime soon.
“Think about how many students might legitimately have something metal on them.” he said. “They’d then have to be searched. You think about going to an airport and how long it takes to go through security, well we’d have that except it’d be magnified, because we’d have 1,400 people arriving at the same time, at C.P. Allen for example. “You’d probably need to have one at every entrance, and you’d probably need at least one person working each metal detector.”
Along with the impracticality of the idea, Hadley said it would also add to a sense of increased fear rather than foster a sense of security.
“Think of the message that it sends to students when you have metal detectors in schools,” he said. “One, this is a very dangerous place, and two, we don’t trust you.”
After yesterday’s arrest at Charles P. Allen, Hadley said many parents were actually pleased with the way it was taken care of, despite the fact that there was no lockdown.
“Once you go into a lockdown, the investigative work in some regards is over. You’re then actively searching, and probably searching a lot of students, and who knows how someone might react if they themselves have a weapon on them and they know police are actively searching for them?”
Hadley also said they chose not to go into lockdown when there was a report of a student with a sawed-off rifle at the Bedford high school because it would have distracted from the firearm search.
“The work of the school’s administration then changes from trying to determine where the threat might be coming from, to trying to work with the parents.”
The gun was found in a 17-year-old student’s backpack yesterday afternoon. He was due in court today to answer to several serious firearms offences.
