Western Albemarle debuted its new security system on Friday, November 8th at the last football game of the season. Over the summer, the School Safety Advisory Committee was created by Albemarle County’s Ralph Bradley, director of school safety and security. They provided all Albemarle County High Schools with two metal scanners, similar to the ones at UVA games, to “provide an additional layer of security as people walk into [WAHS] games,” Said athletic director Dan Bledsoe. The Athletic Department ran a trial run during a JV football game to test out the scanners before the big game. After entering the stadium, while tickets were being scanned, the people also walked through one of the two metal detectors to make it into the game.
Sophomore Tessa Showalter, who attended the game, said “the process was very simple; we walked through the detectors and that was it.” Although it slowed down the entrance process, everyone made it into the game safely and in a timely manner.
Assistant Principal Doug Granger said that even though there hasn’t been much feedback, he has learned that “schools divisions that employ [metal detection systems] have far fewer weapons found in their schools. And so what’s apparently happening in those school divisions is that people are still coming to school, but they’re leaving their weapons at home. And to me, that’s an overall plus in the safety category.” Both Granger and Bledsoe assume that the end goal for this project is to have metal detectors inside all school buildings. Granger said, “Having watched the progression of no alarms on the doors to having alarms on the doors to having weapons detectors at games, it seems to me that the next step would be having weapons detectors at the main entrances for the school.” Schools across the country are suffering from the use of weapons on school grounds. It is important that the county prevents issues like this.
The metal detectors made their basketball debut on Friday, December 6 against Rockton High School.
