OXNARD : District Praises Pilot Metal Detector Program

Four weeks from graduation, Oxnard Union High School District administrators swear by their pilot program that uses hand-held metal detectors to weed out weapons on campus.

But some students say the program is, at best, arbitrary, and, at worst, racist.

“They’re just searching us because we’re gang-related,” said a 16-year-old Latino sophomore at Oxnard High School.

“They just search the Mexicans and the blacks,” he said. “I’ve never seen them search a white guy.”

Administrators, who started using the devices the first week of April in response to increased incidents of violence on county campuses, say the students searched are chosen at random.

Assistant Supt. Gary Davis said school principals choose classrooms and letters of last names by random, then administer the test to those students whose names begin with that letter.

“We think it’s been a very successful deterrent for students bringing weapons to campus,” Davis said.

“We’ve had a vast reduction in the numbers of students recommended by principals for expulsion due to possession of weapons.”

Other Oxnard High students say the metal detectors have made virtually no difference.

“It hasn’t changed anything,” freshman Alex Garcia said. “The searches don’t make any difference. People still bring whatever they want to class.”

Davis said as many as 30 students had been expelled for bringing weapons to school before the searches, but said the number had dwindled to below 10 districtwide since early April.

“We don’t have any recommendations for expulsion going to the board for the meeting of May 26,” he said.