The DeKalb County School District is adding weapons detection systems to stadiums and several schools after one year of using the technology.
The school board voted Monday to pay $1.65 million to put the system from Massachusetts-based Evolv in five football stadiums and two additional schools, as well as add machines to four high schools that already have the system. DeKalb previously agreed to pay $8 million over four years to lease the system for 41 middle and high schools.
Each of DeKalb’s five football stadiums already has traditional metal detectors. The Evolv system is billed as a way to screen for weapons without people having to stop and empty their bags.
Henry County’s school system last year put the Evolv systems in its football stadiums in an effort to improve safety. Last fall, two teenagers were shot outside metro Atlanta football games in the same weekend; one of the victims died and one suffered a spinal cord injury.
In the year prior to the system’s rollout, DeKalb found 24 guns in schools. But in the 2023-2024 school year, when the weapons detection system was in place, it found four guns. The system is “discouraging students from bringing that type of weapons into schools,” Superintendent Devon Horton said recently.
In addition to the district’s five football stadiums, Wadsworth Magnet School and the DeKalb Early College Academy are getting the machines for the first time. Chamblee High, Columbia High, Dunwoody High and Lakeside High will all get additional machines.
When the system was implemented in DeKalb in August, long lines formed outside some schools when the system flagged laptops, band instruments or water bottles. Additionally, the Federal Trade Commission requested information from the company about its marketing practices, Evolv said in a federal filing in October. School systems in North Carolina and New York have reported issues with the system detecting knives or falsely identifying items as weapons.
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