PARKLAND, Fla. – In the wake of the February 14^th Parkland school shooting tragedy, the Broward County School District is presenting new security measures as a new school year approaches for students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High (MSDH), site of the mass shooting.

The district initially sought to require students to wear transparent backpacks to school, an idea which was met with both skepticism and criticism of its overall effectiveness.

Presently, the school has made changes by requiring students to wear identification badges, increasing campus security and reducing the amount of entryways. Now, the campus will be introducing their next safety solution.

The district will no longer be pushing the formerly proposed clear backpacks and will instead be installing metal detectors into MSDH to clear all students upon campus entry.

A district spokeswoman, Jaquelyn Calzadilla stated that Miami-Dade County has “a districtwide random weapons search program that is conducted with metal detector wands and is exploring the feasibility of expanding the program based on school size and student population,” adding that the district is also exploring the possibility of stationary metal detectors.

Metal detectors being used as a security tool is nothing new in schools, with the technology frequently implemented in metropolises. Various school districts, including ones in South Florida, have long rejected this solution, putting their focus on mental health and possible warning signs in students.

MSDH will also add four additional security officers, more school resource officers, an extra 52 cameras and more gates and locking mechanisms.

MSDG student, Gabriella Figueroa told CBS Miami that she feels a lot safer since no one is going to bring [weapons] when the schools has metal detectors.

The League of Cities Task force wrote in a June report that it “strongly recommends” that the district consider metal detectors countywide while tackling the challenges of ensuring the fairness and consistency of their use.

“The physical deployment of these must be uniform across the district,” the report says, recommending the district study how the detectors are used in other districts with large schools. The report said the district should create methods to check students, while maintaining respect for their privacy and personal belongings.

Drew said the district will not violate student privacy by requiring all students to go through the metal detectors to ensure efficiency and impartiality.

District officials haven’t yet clarified exactly how the metal detectors would work, including whether students will walk through them or be scanned with portable wands. It’s also uncertain whether the district would begin installing them in other schools.

Photo License: Creative Commons.

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Architect Jeff Straub of the architectural firm Crabtree, Rohrbaugh and Associates of Mechanicsburg, Pa., has incorporated design elements in his last four projects for SCASD, including State College Area High School, that are specifically meant to thwart gun violence and enhance student safety. Straub also recently designed three elementary school projects, which break ground next month. For each of these projects, he found himself working outside of the purview of his usual — namely school administrators — as he incorporated the insights of local law enforcement and first responders.

“It used to be that we would build a building and the police would come in afterward and have zero input through the process,” Straub said to the Centre Daily Times, a local news service. “Now we have law enforcement and [emergency medical services] walking the site and letting us know how they would approach a building and what are their concerns when you’re putting a building together.”

Among the design elements intended to help curb gun violence are “natural surveillance” techniques like maintaining a visually open main entrance so that school officials have a clear vantage of everyone who enters the facility from inside of the building. Likewise, ground plants do not exceed 1.5 feet, and trees and other vegetation will be not be permitted canopies lower than 5.5 feet from the ground, thus reducing the amount of “cover” an armed attacker could use. Other entrances will be made with transparent glass with entry points that can be locked electronically. Moreover, the grounds will be lit at night with an array of LED lights.

Besides his professional certifications as an architect, Straub also completed training in Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED), which practitioners pronounce “sep-ted.” It’s defined by the International CPTED Association (ICA) as “a multidisciplinary approach to deterring criminal behavior through environmental design.” School faculty and staff will also be trained by local law enforcement on how to effectively deal with an armed person on campus.

“We need to make sure that we’re paying attention and working with people who need to be involved to help us improve our security,” said Superintendent Bob O’Donnell saidto the Centre Daily Times. “We want to make sure that we’re building an environment where it’s optimum for the kids learning and balancing that with the needs to make sure we’re building highly secure facilities so that the kids are safe.”

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