LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WHAS11) – Jefferson County Public Schools Chief Operating Officer Michael Raisor gave an official answer on whether or not JCPS will get metal detectors in the near future.
“There's been talk of do we need metal detectors in our school, and right now, from my seat, and right now from their seat, we're going to say 'probably not,” he said to the school board.
Raisor explained his reasoning behind no metal detectors, saying they would be disruptive.
“This isn't about money because you can't put a price on the safety of children,” he said.
Attorney Shannon Fauver is one of four local attorneys who wrote a letter to JCPS Superintendent Donna Hargens in September, pushing for metal detectors at JCPS middle schools and high schools after several incidents involving guns brought to school.
“My children are at two different JCPS schools. They have both been in schools where there have been guns there this year,” Fauver said.
Fauver joined Raisor and others on a visit to Cincinnati last year where schools use metal detectors every day.
“I saw students entering that building over a 45 minute period and they trickled in. We have busses and cars pull up and we have 2,000 kids at a high school at one time,” said Raisor.
He listed jams outside the school, and students finding ways to go around the metal detectors as potential issues.
“If someone really has it in their mind to do harm to children, 2,000 standing outside of a school are a lot easier a target than individuals,” Raisor told the board.
Instead, he's proposing handheld wands on students and to avoid any profiling, he says schools would be randomly selected to undergo the security check.
The wands are something all JCPS schools should already have, but Raisor says they're just not often utilized.
“Some schools have them, some school don't. Some schools have left the batteries in them and they've corroded,” he said.
The wands would cost $150 each. It is unclear when they are going to be available to every school.