First, in Oregon, Salem-Keizer will place gun detectors in all of its high schools

The Salem-Keizer School District will be the first in Oregon to install gun detectors in all six high schools, a move that will cost at least $1.5 million, Superintendent Andrea Castañeda said Friday.

The district will likely expand the technology to its middle schools, she added. About half of the costs will be covered by money from the settlement with the vaping company Juuland the remainder comes from the Salem-Keizer Risk Management Fund.

Conversations about school safety and security systems have been a sensitive topic in Oregon for almost 30 years, ever since: 15-year-old student at Thurston High School outside Springfield opened fire in the school cafeteria in 1998, killing two classmates and wounding 25 others.

But so far, no school district in the state has installed gun detection systems in all high schools – familiar to anyone who has been to an airport, concert or major league sporting event. Only o 6% of secondary schools nationwide According to the National Center for Education Statistics, they use this technology, and most of them are large urban high schools with large percentages of diverse students from low-income backgrounds.

Salem-Keizer, Oregon’s second-largest school district, generally fits this profile. Forty-six percent of students are Latino, and 16% of students live below the poverty line, which is typical in large urban areas such as Miami, Las Vegas, and Denver. (In Portland and Beaverton, Oregon’s two other largest neighborhoods, child poverty is only half that).

Salem-Keizer has already installed gun detectors at one of its high schools and plans to install them at another in the coming weeks.

“While I wish we were first in many things, I wish we weren’t,” Castañeda said in an interview with The Oregonian/OregonLive. “But it may be the case that Oregon school systems are now in the early stages of (realizing) what many of them have already done in other states: that additional layers of security are not only possible, but fundamental. The one-time investment in a comprehensive security layer is well worth the value it adds to our system, as well as the peace of mind it provides our employees and students.

Salem began piloting gun detectors at South Salem High School, which has 2,133 students, last spring after shooting in a park three blocks from the school, he killed 16-year-old Jose Vazquez-Valenzuela, a sophomore at South Salem, and wounded two other teenagers. The shooting occurred on Thursday afternoon, during the school day. Another 16-year-old South Salem student, Nathaniel Shauntae McCrae Jr., was arrested days later on charges of second-degree murder and attempted murder.

Students, in particular, were initially skeptical of the detection system, according to internal district surveys, saying they believed it would cause them to be late for class. About half of the 679 South Salem High School students surveyed before the system was implemented told district officials that they believed having to go through a gun detection system upon arrival at school would make them feel less welcome at school; only 35% thought it would make them feel safer.

Internal research this fall shows that these sites have thawed. Forty-eight percent of the 1,066 South Salem students who responded to a survey in the fall told the district they felt safer at school because of the system, while the number who said going through gun detectors made them feel less welcome in school, dropped to about one-third.

Employees were more enthusiastic: of the 50 employees who took part in a fall survey, 72% said the system made them feel safer at school.

Castañeda said she is well aware of the view that gun detection systems are merely security theater, equipment that is cheaper than, for example, investing in more support for students’ mental health or, on a much broader scale, passing significant screening legislation weapons . She said the technology is not the only solution to a very complicated problem that has fallen disproportionately on schools.

“But what I’m offering is the perspective that feeling safe is so fundamental to learning that if we can take any steps (to increase it), it won’t be theatrics,” Castañeda said. “It is a prerequisite for learning.”

The commune must also be careful about its expenses. It absorbed $71 million in across-the-board budget cuts last year.

Like Portland Public SchoolsSalem-Keizer stopped paying for armed school officers in 2020, amid coast-to-coast unrest over the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers and the resulting nationwide examination of racial bias in law enforcement practices.

Since then, both districts have grappled with waves of gun violence near their schools. Portland he experimented in the fall of 2023 with a mobile gun detection system during a football game between McDaniel and Lincoln High Schools, shortly after a parking lot shooting during a basketball game at Franklin High School.

But Portland went no further, said Director of Safety and Emergency Services Molly Romey.

“We were unable to find a solution to the staffing requirements to operate the system,” Romey said. “A minimum of three people are required to safely operate each detection unit. Internally, we do not have the resources or funding to staff the systems and continue to provide safety support during sports competitions.”

Student activists in Portland-area school districts have consistently called for a focus on adding mental health supports in schools, including hiring more social workers who can provide social services to students and their families, and for broader gun control measures, such as raising the age at which Oregonians can purchase semi-automatic long guns.

Jorge Sanchez-Bautista, a McDaniel High School senior who has urged Portland school officials to do more to address gun violence, said he understands and even empathizes with Salem-Keizer’s decision to reach out towards weapon detectors. But he wondered what it would look like.

“Let’s say they found a gun. What does the process look like?” Sanchez-Bautista asked. “This is my most important question. What if it was a white student vs. a student of color? How would the scanning people and administration handle this? How do we make sure they are not biased?”

Castañeda said that since the pilot began in South Salem, no weapons have been detected in more than 56,000 scans. However, the system detected knives and vaping pens, which were confiscated by officials, she added.

Sofia Castellanos, a senior at South Salem, said that since the system was turned on, she has been stopped regularly, often because of a musical instrument in her bag, and that interactions with security officers have been pleasant and businesslike.

“I would rather be stopped for setting off a gun detector with my umbrella than for simply firing a gun,” she said. “It’s like opening the pockets of your backpack and they search a little bit and that’s it.”

Her classmates were initially skeptical and concerned about being late to class, Castellanos said, but now, she said, students seem to accept it as part of their daily routine, especially first-graders who have never known any other system

The district’s early disciplinary data from the first month of the school year shows a significant decline in conduct incidents at South Salem compared to previous years, while other high schools saw increases.

Across the state, this fall has been eventful school safety incidents. Several involved threats on social media that turned out to be unfounded but nonetheless resulted in police investigations, school closures, event cancellations or community-wide alarm.

Others resulted in the arrests of students.

For example, police say a 12-year-old student at Pilot Butte High School in Bend was arrested Monday after brandishing a loaded handgun at school. Police said an 11-year-old from Skyridge High School in Camas was arrested after he brought a gun to school on Sept. 25.

A Gresham High teenager was arrested Sept. 20 after police said he brought a gun to school. Principal of Gresham High School he resigned this week amid concerns about how he would handle the incident.

A growing number of school districts in Oregon have made such changes security-related investments over the last decade, some of them nationwide spending spree about school safety.

Portland Public Schools has installed surveillance cameras in all of its schools and says it has installed new equipment in classroom doors to allow them to be locked from the inside in the event of a threat. In addition to secure entrances, all schools in the district are equipped with locking devices that allow all perimeter and classroom doors to be locked with the push of a button.

The Klamath Falls school district has been experimenting with mergers artificial intelligence technology to security cameras to try to flag anyone bringing a gun onto school property. The Redmond School District in central Oregon has upgraded its elementary school entrances: visitors are now directed by an audible signal to a vestibule, where they can be seen by a front desk employee, and then ushered through a second locked door into the school.

Castaneda said it’s logistically complicated to install gun detection systems made by California-based Evolv at Salem-Keizer high schools. Some of the sprawling high schools have more than 80 entrances, and crews have spent weeks installing alarm systems to dissuade students and staff from using entry points other than the main entrances, where weapons detection systems are located.

The next high school in the district to be included in the system will be McKay High School, along with four other comprehensive high schools that will be launched during the school year.

— Julia Silverman covers K-12 education for The Oregonian/OregonLive. Contact her by email at [email protected]. Keep following her X.com at @jrlsilverman.