PHOENIX — It's an early weekday morning as students at Verrado High School pull up to campus. They grab their belongings, swing their backpack on their back and walk towards the entrance of the school. As they get to the door, a sign greets them telling them to take out their laptops. They oblige and walk carefully through newly installed weapon detector.
"With the recent events that have happened around the country, our governing board has taken a look at how safety is implemented at all five of our high schools," said Megan Griego, the Senior Executive Officer at Agua Fria High School District.
The district has continuously focused on school safety and put an emphasis on measures that can help protect each of its five campuses. Each school has mental health resources, school resource officers and security personnel. They're now taking it a step further.
"So we have five different high schools where we've implemented weapon detectors at four of those, we do plan to have weapon detectors at all five high schools by the end of this school year, Griego said.
The machines began to be installed in January and are pretty straightforward. Griego said they are all calibrated to pick up weapons that would do mass harm.
VERSIÓN EN ESPAÑOL: ‘Proveer un ambiente seguro y amistoso es nuestra prioridad’: Distrito de Agua Fría instala detectores de armas
"So if something is detected our security team is trained to interact with that student, look in their bag," she said. "They help make sure students get into the building safely. It's just like all the other weapons detectors the public may already be familiar with. For example if you go to Cardinals stadium or other sporting events it's very similar to those systems that the public is used to walking through."
Within the past 18 months, school officials said there've been seven incidents reported on campus with students. In those cases, two weapons made it onto campus. In the other five cases weapons were found in vehicles. School officials said students were quick to report the incidents which helped officials get the weapons immediately before harm was done.
"The ultimate goal of our safety program is to keep our students safe," Griego said. "We want to provide them with a safe and friendly learning environment. It is a bit of a change but given that in our society we're faced with looking at safety everyday very differently than we have in the past, the community has definitely open and responsive and respected our decision to implement the safety measure."
"It was a little weird," Braden Marchese said.
Marchese is a sophomore at the school. He said it was initially a bit strange but understands why they're being put in place. He also said he appreciates the measures the district is implementing to try and protect people on campus.
"I think they're important just because things that could happen at schools are now being prevented and weapons that could be brought in aren't being brought in," he said.
The final detectors are planned for Millennium High School and are expected to be fully installed by the end of the school year. However, officials said their work is far from over.
"What we found from our partners in Global Security is that yes we can prevent tragedies from happening in our schools. It's certainly a multitiered approach," she said. "The weapons detectors alone aren't going to stop every crime from happening but it's one of several strategies to make sure we have a safe and friendly learning environment."
Up to Speed
Catch up on the latest news and stories on the 12News YouTube channel. Subscribe today