BUENA PARK : Metal Detectors on Campus Approved

The Buena Park School District Board of Trustees has given final approval to a policy that allows the use of metal detectors to screen students for weapons.

Board of Trustees President B. Buck Levine said the hand-held detectors will be used with discretion when school officials believe a weapon is in a student’s possession.

“It’s primarily a preventive type of action,” Levine said during the board’s meeting Monday night. “If we prevent people from bringing weapons on campus in the future, then it will serve the purpose.”

The school district, which bought four detectors for about $600 each, is the first district in Orange County that plans to use the devices on school grounds.

“Parents need to know that we’re going to do as much as we can to protect the students,” said Trustee Elizabeth Swift.

Two fifth-grade students were recently expelled, then transferred to other schools, after they threatened another student with a pellet gun.

District officials said using metal detectors will help to prevent students from bringing weapons to school, which will in turn prevent violence or serious injury.

Officials said the detectors will be used at Buena Park Junior High School and possibly at the district’s six elementary schools.

“We’re hoping never to find the need,” said Linda Wheeler, Buena Park Junior High School assistant principal. “It’s just a tool.”

Wheeler said parents have reacted positively to the use of detectors on campus. “They just think it’s another way of keeping their kids safe,” she said.

The new policy also declares district schools as “weapons-free zones.”

“The policy is good because we need to state that we have zero tolerance for weapons on campus,” Swift said.