The Poughkeepsie City School District will implement a weapons detection system at the Circle of Courage Learning Community next year, following a 4-1 vote by the Board of Education.
A metal detector at Poughkeepsie High School could follow in years to come, but for fall, an attendance system with upgrade capabilities for weapons detection will be installed at PHS.
The system approved for the alterative program integrates a swipe-card attendance program with a walk-through, full-body scan metal detector that shows the location of any weapons hidden on the body. The program for the high school by the same vendor will only have attendance capability, but weapons modules could be added to the systems for about $13,600 per module. The expenditure for both systems is $69,000, and funds will come from money left over from a building expansion project.
Officials said the attendance system would help school staff determine who was present and accounted for – it would also alert them to students who might be cutting classes. Students will enter the building by swiping a bar-coded identification card at one of the system’s four stations. Using terminals in their classrooms, teachers will mark student attendance, and the system can generate reports showing a student’s whereabouts throughout the day.
One kink yet to work out is what to do when students lose their photo ID cards.
“They are going to lose them,” said Superintendent Laval Wilson: one reason he recommending trying the attendance system at the high school before rolling it out at the middle school, he said.
Board vice president Ellen Staino voiced concern that the attendance system at the high school would be laying the groundwork for a weapons system to follow – something she said the board had not sufficiently discussed and had not approved. “I do think this board hasn’t really talked about it,” she said: “I don’t know I’m ready to accept that part.”
With the district’s most disruptive students attending the new alternative program at Circle of Courage, the security risk has increased – creating the need for weapons detection. Wilson said a BB gun and a knife had been found on students attending the school. At the high school, weapons are confiscated each year.
“Eventually we may want to do weapons detection at the high school,” as well, said Wilson.
School board member Robert Creedon voted against approving the system because he felt the board should go through a competitive bid process to select a vendor. As there is only one known maker of an integrated attendance/weapons system, district rules did not require the board to seek bids. But Creedon said it was also possible to purchase attendance and weapons systems separately and combine the two with an integrator.
“I’m 100 percent for the system,” said Creedon, who noted that he had been vocal in supporting a weapons detection system in the past. “I just don’t want to do something preemptively without everything in place,” he said, stating that the system should be put to competitive bid.
Despite her concerns, Staino joined board members Raymond Duncan, Greg Charter and Randall Johnson to support the systems. “I’m supporting Dr. Wilson’s recommendation,” she said. “Before we put (weapons detection) in the high school, I want a lot more discussion,” said Staino.
The Circle of Courage was created for special education students, but its population has changed since it was established several years ago. Last year, Wilson introduced an alternative program for students with behavior problems located in the Circle building on Union Street. And this fall the district will run two additional programs at Circle: a GED program that previously occupied rented space in the Presbyterian Church and tutoring for students who have been suspended but who cannot be tutored at home for a variety of reasons. The new programs were brought to Circle as a cost-saving measure: Circle’s special needs students, who numbered 90 five years ago, have dwindled to 16 for fall as the students have integrated into regular classes.
“That Circle of Courage building is really, really changing,” said Staino.