Officials in Montgomery County, Maryland, are planning to install “vape detectors” in school restrooms, and will require students to wear ID badges on campus to quickly identify potential trespassers as part of two new security measures being rolled out at some high schools.
Both measures are pilot projects that will be put in place at “select high schools” in the coming weeks, according to an April 12 school safety update from Brian Hull, Montgomery County Public Schools’ chief operating officer.
The vape detectors will “help to identify any instances of vaping or smoking in the bathrooms, allowing us to take appropriate action to prevent harm to our students’ health and safety,” Hull’s letter stated.
The school system plans to install the vape detectors at five schools to start with. The devices, which are designed to detect smoke or vape fumes, will alert staff members by texts or email when vaping is detected.
The school system has not publicly identified the five high schools that will receive the devices. Jessica Baxter, a spokeswoman for the school system, said the five schools selected for the pilot project are spread throughout the county and have all “had incident over this past school year.”
Earlier this year, MCPS said teachers and staff would make an effort to monitor and check restrooms at schools across the district, citing an increase in smoking and drug use.
In the latest update Wednesday, Hull said officials had continued installing latches on exterior bathroom doors in middle schools to keep them open at all times.
Parents raised the alarm this winter about a spike in student overdoses, and the school system held a number of community forums to discuss the dangers of fentanyl and other opioids.
About 14% of U.S. teens last year said they had recently vaped, according to survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Earlier this month, officials in Stafford County, Virginia, announced plans to install vape detectors in two high schools.
High school student ID badges
Regarding the badge program, the Montgomery County update said it involves high school students wearing ID badges “as a way to quickly identify themselves on campus.”
The letter went on to say, “This will help our staff and security personnel to quickly recognize students who belong on campus and identify any individuals who do not.”
In January, Richard Montgomery High School was placed on a lockdown after two students from another entered the high school without permission and assaulted a student. One of the students was later reported to have had a gun, which sparked the lockdown, but no weapon was found.
Currently, all high school are issued school ID badges but are not required to wear them. The pilot program will require students at selected schools to wear their ID badges during the school day while on MCPS property, the school spokeswoman said.
Hull’s letter said the school system has also made other changes to Montgomery County’s safety plans, including allocating a permanent substitute to all high schools to cover increased staff absences and using “security assistant rovers” at elementary schools “as needed when safety incidents arise.”
The school system said it has also “thoroughly reviewed and revamped” its process for reporting race-based and hate-bias incident. The process now includes a new form for student victims and parents to fill out. In addition, there will now be a mandatory parent conference for any student found to have committed a hate-bias act before they can return to school.
The school system reported a string of antisemitic incident at schools earlier this year.
