Clayton County Public Schools officials debated details of new security measures for the upcoming school year Tuesday evening, including whether parents or the school system would pay for clear backpacks which may be required for middle school and high school students, but took no action.
Amid efforts to address a spike in weapons being brought on campus, Clayton middle school and high school students were prohibited from bringing bookbags on campus or using lockers in May. Last week, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation revealed the district has confiscated nearly 100 weapons on school campuses or buses ever since the school year began.
No one was killed or seriously injured during any of the weapons incidents at Clayton schools this academic year. However, tensions are high nationwide after 19 elementary school students and two teachers were killed in their classroom by a high school student in Texas last week.
Ralph Simpson, the school district’s deputy of school leadership and improvement, said Tuesday the district would like to require students to use clear bookbags at school starting in the fall.
Clayton County Schools Superintendent Morcease Beasley said parents should be required to buy the bags, but Jessie Goree, Clayton’s school board chair, said the district should buy those items. School board member Mary Baker agreed with Goree, and Baker added that she spent $50 on a mesh backpack that only lasted for a week after her child used it.
“It’s not a matter of the finances. We just thought it would be appropriate for parents to purchase the bookbag as they normally do,” Beasley said. “If this board wants us to purchase all the book bags, then that’s what we’ll do.”
In addition to having clear bookbags, Reynard Walker, the school district’s interim director of the division of safety and security, said the district wants to purchase metal detectors and a concealed weapons detection device. They also want to hire more school officers, he said.
Walker said the district used a weapons detection device during the district’s graduation events at the Georgia International Convention Center in late May. When the district used the devices on the 33,110 attendees, they received 4,620 alerts for weapons.
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“95% of the people that came through as it relates to the alert rate was because of umbrellas, strollers, canes and walkers,” Walker said.
“The other small 5% were weapons, and at that particular time, we were able to turn several guns around, as well as a hammer in someone’s possession and a couple of knives. So that weapons detection system worked great.”
Goree urged the district to purchase the scanning devices after seeing them in action. Two other board members publicly agreed. Baker thanked Walker for the district’s transparency, but she also urged them to be selective with the full details of their security plan.
“We want our parents to know that we have secure buildings, but there are some parts of our security that we don’t want the public to know and that is to protect our children,” Baker said.
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