From vaping, the cost of school supplies to cellphone policies, the WTOP team is studying up on hot-button topics in education across the D.C. region. Follow on air and online in our series “WTOP Goes Back to School” this August and September.
Stepped up security is coming to Montgomery County high schools this year. There’s even consideration of bringing weapons detectors to the schools.
“I’m on record as the chief of police noting that I’ve seen guns at an all-time high and particularly amongst young people, that still concerns me. This is why I think it’s important for us to put some important measures in place,” said Marcus Jones, former county police chief and current head of Security, Safety and Emergency Management for Montgomery County Public Schools.
While neighboring Prince George’s County high schools are already using metal detectors, Jones said the county is exploring the possibility of weapons detections systems in its high schools.
“We’re giving that some serious thought … there are those systems out there, we began to talk about that with some of those vendors,” said Jones.
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In April of 2022, a gun was recovered from a student who was arrested at Clarksburg High School. Last October, a student was arrested for bringing a gun to Walter Johnson High School.
If the school system decided to install weapons detectors, Jones said specific schools would not be targeted to receive weapons detectors.
“We want to make it equitable across the board. Realistically, I’d like to see it in every high school. I don’t want to single out any given high school, but I want to make sure that we absolutely have it in all of our high schools, because this could happen anywhere, in any one of our high schools, so we want to make sure we’re on top of that,” Jones said.
Other security measures under consideration included an expansion of the use student IDs to enter high school buildings.
“I think we’re going to do some things with ID checks, we’re going to do some things surrounding door security that I think is going to be vitally important,” said Jones.
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