PLACENTIA / YORBA LINDA : School Board to Talk of Metal Detectors

Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District officials want to use hand-held metal detectors at all of the district’s middle schools and high schools in an effort to find weapons on campus.

But at the same time they say that the district has no major problem with weapons and that using the detectors would be a preventive measure.

The proposed policy, to be considered at a Board of Trustees meeting Tuesday night, would not limit weapons searches to certain grade levels, but Supt. James O. Fleming said the effort would focus on the district’s continuation school, five middle schools and three high schools. He did not rule out using the devices at elementary schools.

“Society is changing,” Fleming said. “We’re seeing more violent things happen. This policy gives schools another tool to make our campuses safer.”

So far this school year, the district has expelled 13 students for carrying weapons. None of the weapons found were firearms.

Trustee Jerry Brakebill, a Brea police detective and former DARE officer, said hand-held metal detectors should be used not just at schools but at athletic events, school dances and other school-related activities.

“Metal detectors are effective as a deterrent,” Brakebill said. “I would like to see them used, particularly at special events.”

Brakebill said the district has been lucky so far in avoiding serious problems with weapons on campuses. But, he added, even one weapon is cause for concern.

“The minute you have one kid bring a weapon on a campus, it is a problem,” he said.

According to Dennis Kreil, director of pupil services, many of the students disciplined for carrying weapons were caught with relatively harmless pocket knives, but the district does not make a distinction between those and other types of weapons.

“We have to send a strong message to the students that no weapons or potential weapons can be brought on campus,” Kreil said.

Typically, students who are found with weapons have been turned in by other students, most often in middle schools, where students generally bring weapons to school to show off to their friends, according to Kreil.

“A student will have the weapon in his backpack and on the way to school or even at school will take it out and show it to someone,” Kreil said. “Another student sees it and reports it to a teacher.”

While middle school students are apt to tell teachers about weapons, high school students are more reluctant to turn in another student, Kreil said.

Kreil credits high school students with being more aware of the ban on weapons and said they are less likely to bring knives or guns on campus merely to show off. This makes discovering weapons more difficult and their presence more dangerous, he said.

“If a high school student has a weapon, they usually have an idea about the weapon that is more likely to include (using it),” Kreil said.

The board will discuss the policy at Tuesday’s board meeting but will not vote on it until the next meeting, on April 12.