Students at Deerfield and Highland Park high schools will arrive on the first day of school this year and pass through a metal detector before proceeding to their locker and class.

Plans originally called for a random announcement and implementation of the new safety precaution but were moved up to Aug. 16 after a Highland Park High School student was shot and killed over the weekend. 16-year-old Omar Morales-Diaz was shot early Sunday morning on Green Bay Road by a man on the sidewalk. Authorities believe the shooting was intentional.

Township High School District 113 Superintendent Bruce Law sent out an email to parents and students Monday, Aug. 14 informing them plans have changed out of an abundance of caution.

“That implementation was planned to be on a small scale and after we taught students about it and worked out with staff on how best to implement it. The timeline for implementation now begins on Wednesday,” Law wrote. “In addition, there will be a greater police presence at HPHS on Wednesday than we typically have on school days.”

According to the email, students will need to present their ID’s when entering the school and be prepared to remove computers from their bags as the metal detectors will identify them as a weapon.

The email also said detectors will be at a different door each day at both schools while the district assess how the system works and its impact on students. It will not be announced in advance which doors will host the weapons detection system.

“We know how important it is for school to look and feel normal, and we are working to make the beginning of school as joyful and exciting as it always is,” Law said in his email. “We also know that security is top of mind in our school community and becomes heightened after any incident involving guns.”

The District 113 Board of Education narrowly approved a safety plan for the new term for Highland Park and Deerfield high schools during a meeting Aug. 8 in Highland Park. The plan is designed to enhance security while maintaining the existing school atmosphere.

“The experience of coming into school is going to be very different,” Law said. “If it’s causing students to experience stress, we need to pay attention to that.”

Before voting 3-2 with an abstention and an absence to OK the $80,000 weapons detection system, the board unanimously approved the balance of a more than $6.3 million overall safety plan which includes aiding emotional needs and capital projects.

Law said the most important thing the district can do to keep students, teachers, administrators and staff safe is to maintain and improve the culture and climate at the two schools it operates — Deerfield and Highland Park high schools.

While schools know how to protect people in the buildings if there is a fire through long existing protocols practiced throughout the year, Law said there are no such standards for gun violence.

“We know from experience it doesn’t always succeed,” Law said.

When preparing to open school a year ago after the mass shooting at Highland Park’s 2022 Fourth of July parade which left seven dead and dozens more wounded, Law said experts from the U.S. Department of Justice did not recommend metal detectors.

After a student walked into Highland Park High School with a gun on April 4 — it was not discharged and there were no injuries — some community members pushed for metal detectors. Law directed a thorough study to develop a safety plan in response to the growing concerns.

“The only difference is it happened here after we had a mass shooting,” Law said referring to the April 4 incident. “Since there is no standard when it comes to gun violence, it’s a local community decision. In our community, we’ve been through this and it was horrendous.”

Proceeding cautiously with the metal detectors, Law said it will be done slowly with close attention paid to the social-emotional impact on students and school personnel. The climate and culture of the schools is good and must remain so.

“We don’t want to do anything to harm culture and climate,” Law said. “That’s the last thing we want to do.”

Board members voting on the weapons detection system all said their voting decision took a lot of thought. Voting for it were Jody Elliott-Shimmer, Greg Neider and Jodi Shapira. Shapira said during the COVID-19 pandemic, the board always followed the experts’ advice.

“I’ll be honest with you all, this decision is harder than the ones we made during COVID,” Shapira said. “During COVID, we made our decisions on what the experts said to us,” she added acknowledging security experts recommended otherwise on metal detectors.

Voting against the weapons detection system were Board Members Anne Neumann and Jaime Barraza. Neumann said the experts only suggested metal detectors in schools only when “community violence spills into the schools.”

Barraza, a Highland Park High School graduate, said Law’s description of the metal detectors to be used unannounced makes him nervous. He worries about the impact on the students.

“Random airport searches happen a little too randomly for me,” Barraza. “My goal is not to stop the guns with a weapons detection system but stop (it) from ever crossing the mind of the student that is even thinking about it.”

Realizing a 3-3 tie would defeat the weapons detection system, Board President Dan Struck abstained form the vote and said he is putting his trust in Law implementing the system cautiously and reporting its success or failure to him and his colleagues.

“This is a difficult vote. I am not at a place where I feel I can vote yes but I am not going to block what I think is a sincere and responsible position taken by Dr. Law,” Struck said. “I trust Dr. Law and I trust our staff but I’m going to abstain.”

Law made it clear while presenting the plan to the board if the metal detectors harm the schools’ climate and culture or do more harm than good, they will be revisited.

“If it starts to feel different in a way that is not good, we need to be able to come back to the board and say we’ve got a problem here,” Law said.

Steve Sadin is a freelance reporter with Pioneer Press.

Originally Published: Aug 14, 2023 at 5:39 pm