Clear or transparent backpacks such as this one will become the norm at the Seaford School District beginning this fall. Photo courtesy of Wikicommons.
This story was originally published on Spotlight Delaware.
The reality of school shootings has plagued the nation for more than two decades, and last year saw more than 300 such incidents. While Delaware has been able to escape much of the bloodshed, recent incidents have unnerved many families and faculty.
Guns have been fired inside schools amid altercations, threats have been left on campuses and knives have been discovered by administrators.
In response, districts around the state have begun implementing new safety initiatives for the coming school year — and they run a wide gamut of different tactics and focuses.
The Seaford School District was among the first in Delaware to install a security system with a weapons detection system for large events. That system was later brought to the high school in May after a student brought a gun and knife to school.
This year, Seaford students will be equipped with another safety initiative as they return to school: clear backpacks.
All students in sixth through 12th grade will be required to have a clear backpack for school. The district will have clear backpacks at the high school for students to buy if they don’t have access before the first day of school. Bags will also be available for students who cannot afford to buy their own.
When Seaford began using the weapons detector system in its high school, students were required to take out items that could set off the detector, like Chromebooks or iPads, before they walked through, said Gary Zoll, the district’s director of student services.
Zoll and Assistant Superintendent James Cameron hope the clear backpacks will streamline their current weapon detection system and ease any ongoing safety concerns from parents or students.
“Even going through weapons detection [with a clear backpack] just makes it easier to look in that bookbag and see if the weapon detection system went off for something simple,” Zoll said.
The district also hired an additional two constables for the coming school year, meaning all six of their buildings will officially have a constable or a school resource officer, Cameron said.
But Seaford isn’t the only school district in the state to introduce new safety measures this coming school year. The Laurel School District also implemented a weapons detection system in its high school at the end of the 2023-24 school year.
Multiple districts have passed referendums partially giving money toward safety and security initiatives, and others have implemented their own safety strategies after various incidents.
Upgrades follow Milford schools threat
On March 7, the Milford School District went into lockdown and schools remained closed the next day after a threatening note was reportedly left by a former employee. Superintendent Bridget Amory told the district they would see increased security efforts.
Amory said it’s always been part of a larger plan to have a constable on-site at each of Milford’s schools and the district has since hired more constables, including substitutes.
The school district started doing building threat and risk assessments to put together a plan of different safety initiatives before the March incident, said Jessica Weller, the supervisor of school climate and safety.
The district also updated its surveillance system’s cameras and hopes that all schools will have new cameras by the beginning of the upcoming school year. Weller said they’ve also updated their radio system to have two-way communication throughout the district.
In addition to the tech updates, Milford teachers will have access to training and tools to have on hand in case of emergency.
“Preparing is what helps people work through what the normal body response is to a critical incident,” Weller said. “So the more we can prepare and the more training we can do, the better the response is going to be if something terrible were to happen.”
Amory also noted that these initiatives can seem intimidating, but they’re in place to be proactive rather than reactive.
This weapon detection system from the tech company Evolv has become a common sight at Appoquinimink schools and sporting events following two shooting incidents. Photo courtesy of Evolv
Appo implements AI eyes
The Appoquinimink School District implemented two initiatives this past school year after two incidents where guns were fired on or near campuses.
The district introduced a weapons detector system for its major sporting events that allows staff to screen fans before entering. The school district’s referendum for the 2023-24 school year put $500,000 toward adding ZeroEyes security cameras to each of the district’s cameras.
The ZeroEyes’ artificial intelligence-backed software embeds into Appoquinimink’s existing cameras, and the software is trained to identify a brandished weapon but doesn’t pick up anything that’s concealed, said Tom Poehlmann, the assistant superintendent of secondary schools.
“When a weapon is picked up through our camera system, it sends the picture back to what’s known as the ZeroEyes operation center, and there is a person that will determine whether it’s a threat,” Poehlmann said.
It’s possible for the AI software to pick up a weapon that belongs to a law enforcement officer, and the “human loop” will determine whether the weapon is a threat, Poehlmann added. If a weapon is determined to be a threat, the “human loop” will automatically call the 911 dispatch.
The referendum called for a phase-in of the cameras, with $115,000 spent to install about a third of the cameras during the 2023-24 school year, $234,000 to cover the upcoming school year and $350,000 in the third year.
ZeroEyes is currently being used in cameras outside of the stadiums and basketball courts, and Appoquinimink is looking to expand the software to additional cameras this summer, Poehlmann said.
Red Clay gets on same page
The Red Clay Consolidated School District also passed its referendum in February, with 20% of the funds going toward curriculum materials, safety and security and mental health support.
The district is primarily using the safety and security portion of the referendum funding for upgrading the walkie-talkie system throughout the district to ensure that everyone in the district has the same technology, said A.J. Nowell, the supervisor of safety and security at Red Clay.
“Right now, it’s mainly run by each individual school, but Safety and Security is going to oversee that,” Nowell said. “We’re going to purchase radios that can be used if I’m at Baltz Elementary School, and I leave Baltz and I go to Dickinson [High School], the radio will be able to be used throughout the district, whatever school that you’re in.”
The walkie-talkies are being implemented as a three-year plan, and there should be five to six schools equipped with the new walkie-talkies by September, Nowell added.
The district is also hiring three additional constables to be placed in Red Clay’s elementary schools.
Nowell, who has held his position for seven years, also implemented quarterly meetings with the supervisors of public safety at the Appoquinimink, Brandywine, Colonial and Christina school districts and the Newark Charter School, along with leaders from Wilmington University and Delaware Technical Community College.
“We bring up issues that we’re having in our schools with safety and security and we work together,” Nowell said. “We’re trying to all get on the same page and kind of be consistent with safety and security measures and initiatives that we’re working on to keep our students and staff safe.”
The district also utilizes an anonymous 411 tip line to report anything “that’s not right” happening in Red Clay schools.
Brandywine connects with police
The reason why safety and security initiatives were at the top of the Brandywine School District’s list of asks in their referendum was because it was something for which families were advocating, Superintendent Lisa Lawson said.
“I can say second to none with all the referendum presentations we did, especially at the elementary level, the question we got from the audience, from the families were, ‘Are we going to increase the number of constables we have? We only have three [constables] for nine elementary schools that are spread across. Are we getting another one?’” Lawson said.
Brandywine’s referendum overwhelmingly passed earlier this year, and the northernmost school district was able to upgrade its camera system to allow Delaware State Police and other law enforcement agencies to have access to live footage from their cameras.
The cameras were introduced last year, but the district has “a few” schools left to finalize.
It took three years to establish the camera system due to firewall issues with state servers, said Kenneth “Kenny” Rivera, the assistant superintendent. The district also needed to ensure that no one else could access the cameras besides the school and police agency.
In emergency cases, the cameras will be able to provide firsthand live feed and information of what’s happening from a dispatcher or investigator’s perspective, said Vincent “Buddy” Jordan, Brandywine’s lead constable.
“Those officers racing to the scene are not normally going to be able to pull that up on a camera, but their dispatchers can and inform them of exactly what’s happening in live time,” Jordan explained.
The district also introduced live communication through radios for constables and resource officers within the district, and any dispatching entity for Wilmington, New Castle County or the state.
Brandywine has updated its buses’ cameras for this school year, and students will now be able to sign in and out using their lunch numbers.
“They can either key [their lunch number] in or we were exploring some type of a scanning system,” Lawson said. “The bus driver can also recognize the student, especially if it’s a kindergartner and they can’t remember their bus number, and check them in. But we just want parents to be able to know, yes, they got on the bus and then they got off the bus.”
Lake Forest brings in constables
The Lake Forest School District also passed its referendum in May, and a significant part of the referendum was bringing constables into each of the schools, said Dustin Weller, the district supervisor of student services.
Lake Forest surveyed the community to see if they’d be comfortable with an armed constable in the school before bringing the topic to the board of education. Around 90% of the district was in favor of an armed constable in the building.
“Our neighboring districts also had hired constables, either to work in all of their campus locations or all their building locations,” Weller said. “We did not want to leave ourselves as an open target to somebody who maybe had some ill or bad intention. So we really wanted to do this to protect ourselves.”
The district chose their lead constable before the referendum vote, and after it passed they focused on hiring a constable for each school. Lake Forest has also given its constables “every type of training they could have,” including the Child Crisis Response Training, Weller added.
Although the referendum’s portion for safety and security is used entirely for the constables, as they are funded through local money, Lake Forest is using its remaining COVID funds and safety and security grants for various updates, including upgrading the camera system at each school.
Four of the district’s seven schools have completed the new camera system, and another two will be completed for the coming school year. The last will have a new camera system sometime during this fiscal year, Weller said.
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