The Washington Township school board has approved the purchase of six new weapon detectors to place at entrances to North Central High School.The decision came two weeks after a North Central student brought a gun to school in his backpack, but the district's plans to install the technology started months earlier.
The detectors are manufactured by Evolv, a technology firm that develops screening devices and software. The system will cost $510,012, according to the proposal that the school board approved at its Aug. 26 meeting.
The purchase includes two dual-lane and four single-lane Evolv Express models. Some of the units will be placed at the J. Everett Light Career Center, adjacent to North Central and connected to the main school building through a hallway. Each device comes with two tablets, loaded with software to display the location of potential threats detected by the scanner.
The new detectors "will allow for daily screening at all entry doors during student arrival," Matt Kaiser, the district's assistant superintendent of operational services, said at the Aug. 26 school board meeting. "Once we reach full deployment, units will remain in use at all late arrival and visitor entrances for the entirety of the school day."
Installation will be completed by the end of the semester, Kaiser said.
Neither Kaiser nor North Central principal Jagga Rent responded to an IndyStar email asking for more details about the plan. It was not immediately clear what security systems North Central currently has in place.
Plans to ramp up North Central's security long preceded the discovery of the student's gun this August. The school district began evaluating weapon detection systems from three vendors — Evolv Express, CEIA OpenGate, and Xtract One Gateway — in January before recommending Evolv's technology to the board this spring. In April, the board approved the purchase of one Evolv unit, which was tested across a rotating list of doors.
Other schools that use Evolv have run into issues with student tablets and laptops, like the Google Chromebooks issued to North Central students, sometimes setting off false alarms. But student devices didn't pose a big issue during the testing period, though other materials have, Kaiser told the school board.
"What we found is we're actually not getting that many false readings off of Chromebooks," he said. "We've also learned that large three-ring binders with a metal spine are a bit problematic."
The Evolv system scored four out of five on a district evaluation for how well it detected hidden weapons, higher than the competitors. Evolv's detectors also received high scores for allowing students to walk through without pausing, handling multiple students walking through at the same time and looking like "tech" rather than a "prison gate."
Rent announced the plans to purchase the new Evolv detectors in a voicemail to parents and a message on the ParentSquare app. He emphasized that the new devices were intended to be unobtrusive and convenient for students arriving at school. North Central has about 3,600 students enrolled.
"Our goal is to screen every student and visitor daily while keeping entry moving smoothly and preserving a welcoming school environment," Rent wrote in the ParentSquare message. "Unlike traditional metal detectors, Evolv's technology allows students to walk through seamlessly without removing backpacks or causing unnecessary delays at morning arrival."
The incident on Aug. 13, when a 16-year-old student was found with a loaded handgun that had been modified to fire continuously, ended without injuries. Police confiscated the weapon after a parent called school administrators to report that one of the student's classmates had seen him with a gun.
Tilly Robinson is a Pulliam Fellow for the Indianapolis Star. She can be reached at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: North Central High School to install new metal detectors