Fayette School officials will be instituting random metal detection at district high schools later this month. The decision comes following the investigation of students bringing guns to Tates Creek High School three times over the last 12 days.
Another student brought a BB gun to Bryan Station Middle School earlier this week.
Schools Superintendent Manny Caulk says family members are also urged to monitor what students are carrying with them when they leave for school. “Continue to encourage our families to check their student’s backpack to jackets, etc. to make sure they’re only bringing school appropriate materials to school.”
Caulk says the mobile metal detectors will be moved from one high school to another with some regularity. He says the multi-faceted approach involves students, families, staff, law enforcement, and the community. In each of the recent gun incidents, students indicated they brought weapons due to situations outside school.
Caulk says these incidents don’t appear to be related at all to attention given to the recent election. “In talking to the students, they had nothing to do with the election. The students, again their intention, at least in the majority of these cases, were not intending on going to school that day. They had more to do with what they were experiencing in the community.”
Caulk says, starting after Thanksgiving, the mobile metal detectors will be moved around among the high schools.
He says the multi-pronged approach to enhancing safety involves students, their families, staff, law enforcement, and the community at large.
