Metal Detectors 101 : Burbank Educators Learn How to Conduct Weapons Searches

They stared intently at the diagram, read the list of instructions, then watched attentively as the instructors demonstrated the assignment.

“In order to search effectively you have to adjust the sensitivity,” Sgt. Robert Brode said, turning a small knob on the long, black wand. “First, you start at the collar, then move down.”

As his assistant stood in front of him, Brode moved the wand down the outside of the man’s arm, then back up the inside.

“Notice I don’t have my arms out like a scarecrow,” the assistant, Lt. Larry Koch, said. “You don’t need that. All you need is the hands slightly away from the body.”

Call this Metal Detector 101.

About 30 school administrators in Burbank received training in the use of hand-held metal detectors this week for the first time in the history of the 13,000-student Burbank Unified School District. Conducted by members of the Burbank Police Department, the session was designed to demonstrate the proper procedure for conducting a weapons search, and to address legal and ethical questions that arise when searching students.

“The main thing is that you really don’t want people to feel they’re being discriminated against,” Koch said. “You want them to feel safe.”

But for some of the principals and counselors, the session was also a stark indicator of their changing roles as educators--even in the comparatively small and quiet suburban school district.

“I never in my wildest dreams thought I’d be doing this,” said Paula Willebrands, dean of Burbank High School, after conducting a practice search on a Burbank High School counselor.

“Our roles have expanded to meet the students’ needs.”

Other school officials and parents question whether such stringent measures are necessary.

Keiko M. Hentell, principal of Burbank High School, said the detectors “probably are not as necessary as some people think,” and will mean more work for school administrators.

“However, I am aware of the concerns that are there in the community,” Hentell added.

In the wake of two fatal shootings on the campuses of schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District, the Burbank Board of Education has implemented several measures to address the issue of weapons on campus, including the use of hand-held metal detectors.

Helping students and their parents understand “that weapons have no place on the streets of Burbank, that weapons have no place in the schools in Burbank or any other community is the real issue,” said Arthur Pierce, superintendent of the Burbank Unified School District.

For school administrators who must conduct the searches, the key issue is to perform the procedure in a manner that is legal and considerate of students’ concerns. Adminstrators cannot single out students for a search based on their style of dress, race or any other factor, police said. Instead, there must be a “neutral formula.”

“If you want to set up a check point and check every fifth person, or every student that passes by for five minutes, that would be OK,” Pierce said.

The district’s search procedures are based on an opinion issued by the state attorney general in 1992, said Richard Currier, attorney for the Burbank Unified School District. The opinion states that such searches are legal when conducted in a “reasonable, non-arbitrary fashion.”

While there has never been a campus killing in the history of the Burbank school district, roughly three-dozen students a year bring weapons such as small knives, slingshots and screwdrivers to school, Pierce said. In a one-month report from the 1991-92 school year, cited by Pierce, no guns other than BB guns were confiscated.

For Burbank schools, the detectors will be more of a proactive measure, to deter the presence of weapons, administrators and school officials said.

For Pamela Feix, principal of Monterey High School, the detectors may be just the thing to quiet the community’s concerns.

“It will help prove that most of our students are not carrying weapons,” Feix said.

But some parents, like Sharon Ranshaw, president of the Burbank High School PTA, have already started to express a different concern: that the security measures are unnecessarily tough on students.

“Things like weapons searches are not going to make our schools safe,” Ranshaw said at a school board meeting this week. “Schools will not be safer until they perceive themselves to be safe.”

About 30 members of the Burbank High School varsity baseball team attended the meeting to protest the suspension of a student found with nunchakus, a martial arts weapon made of two short rods connected by a cord or chain. Clarence and Eleanor Wynne, the boy’s parents, said he had never been in trouble before.

While District Superintendent Pierce has heard the criticism before--mostly from the relatives of expelled or suspended students--he said the overall response to the security measures has been positive.

“From my perspective we need to be tough,” Pierce said. “We need to assure the 13,000 students in this district of a safe and positive learning environment.”

Times correspondent Ed Bond contributed to this story.