Metal Detectors to Be Used at Schools in Buena Park : Security: Trustees cite recent incidents involving weapons. Action appears to be the first in O.C.

In what appears to be a first for Orange County, the Buena Park School District has purchased metal detectors and plans to begin using them next month to screen students for weapons.

School trustees cited two incidents involving students with weapons and a general trend toward violence in schools in supporting the policy, which will be formalized later this month.

The school district has bought four hand-held metal detectors, and the board Monday night discussed a draft of a policy that would allow the district to use them. Trustees are expected to adopt the policy at their next meeting on March 22.

“I don’t know how much they’ll be used, but we’re going to have them here if we need them,” Supt. Jack Townsend said. “We have to be concerned about the safety of our children.”

Trustees said they support the use of metal detectors to protect the safety of students, staff and the public, and as a deterrent.

“In this day and age of backpacks, you can’t tell what kids have in them and what they’re bringing on campus,” Trustee Lloyd Davis said.

Davis said the two recent incidents involving students with weapons are “two too many.”

Trustee Beth Swift called the policy “a sign of the times, unfortunately. We need to make it so the parents in the district feel (that schools are) safe. If it’ll give more confidence to parents that we’re taking care of their kids, then it’s worth it.”

Townsend said the metal detectors will be used at Buena Park Junior High School and possibly at the elementary schools.

Other districts, mostly those with students of high-school age, have discussed the idea and rejected it.

Georgiann Boyd, coordinator of student services with the Orange County Department of Education, said Buena Park “is the first school district I’m aware of that is planning on using them at this time.”

There have been no stabbings or shootings at schools in the Buena Park district. However, school officials this month transferred two fifth-grade students because they used a pellet gun in January to threaten another student in an incident on campus, according to district officials. A junior high student who brought a weapon to school faces expulsion, district officials said.

Other districts in Orange County have had more violence. Since September, there have been at least eight shootings on or near campuses in Lake Forest, Irvine, Fullerton, Santa Ana and Anaheim.

The plan by Buena Park School District officials comes a month after the Los Angeles Unified School District started a program to screen students for weapons. The sprawling Los Angeles district has had numerous shooting incidents on or near campuses this school year, in which three students were killed and three were wounded.

Buena Park School District is multiracial, with 4,691 students at six elementary schools and one junior high school. School and district officials expressed concern that area neighborhoods are changing, with more gang activity than ever before.

“They’re getting pretty rough out there,” said Linda Wheeler, assistant principal at Buena Park Junior High, which has 870 students.

The junior high will use the detectors when a student is suspected of having a weapon, rather than employing random checks, she said.

“We’re just trying to prepare ourselves for any situation that might come up,” Townsend said. “It doesn’t mean we’re going to run out and shake everybody down. But . . . we will be in a position where we can use a metal detector.”

The district expects by late April to be using the wand-type detectors, which cost $140 each.

Corey Elementary School Principal Jerry Horton said the policy “is necessary because the kids are carrying weapons--even at my age level.”

Parent Sandi Reynolds, president of the Home School Assn. at Buena Park Junior High School, an organization of about 25 parents, said she favors the detectors.

“I feel that the campus is a safe campus, but because the kids are coming from different areas and the way they dress, it’s easy to conceal weapons,” Reynolds said.

Reynolds said she doesn’t expect most parents to be upset.

Gaylen Freeman, an assistant superintendent at Santa Ana Unified School District, the county’s largest, said trustees there have never discussed the use of metal detectors on school grounds.

“In our district we have not seen a need to use anything like that at this time,” Freeman said. “We haven’t seen a heavy onslaught of weapons brought onto campuses, and we have controls through expulsion and security on our campuses.”

George West, an assistant superintendent at Fullerton Joint Union High School District, said the district has no interest in metal detectors. There have been no major problems of students with guns at the district’s seven high schools.

“But we’d be putting our heads in the sand if we didn’t believe weapons (are) out there,” he said.

Jacqueline Price, spokeswoman for Capistrano Unified School District, which has 29 schools and 30,000 students, said the district has researched the use of detectors. A week ago, a 13-year-old student from Niguel Hills Middle School in Laguna Niguel was arrested for carrying a loaded handgun to school.

“If the situation with weapons on campus became serious enough that it would warrant making that kind of recommendation to the board, we would be prepared,” Price said.

Boyd of the county Department of Education said metal detectors are one way of dealing with safety problems, while long-term solutions include expanding and strengthening prevention programs in school districts.