If a Clark-Pleasant student is suspected of carrying a weapon, police or other officials can scan the child with a handheld metal detector.
At Edinburgh schools, entire busloads or classrooms of students can be randomly scanned using the new detectors given to schools across the state.
All of Johnson County’s six public school districts received handheld metal detectors; administrators and school boards are sorting through how they should be used and reviewing what policies can and should be followed. In July, Gov. Eric Holcomb announced schools could apply for free handheld detectors as the latest measure in the battle to combat school shootings. He announced a second wave of detectors available to schools this fall.
Through the state, one detector is available free for every 250 students in each district. Ninety-four percent of districts have ordered the detectors, including all six Johnson County districts. Most schools are determining policies for how and when the detectors can be used.
Clark-Pleasant Superintendent Pat Spray said the handheld wands can currently be operated by the school’s police officers or in the presence of one.
“They can be used now but they have to be used by a police officer or (in view of) a police officer,” Spray said. “If someone reports a weapon or a reasonable suspicion to have that.”
Edinburgh schools has approved a policy for how to use the detectors in cases of reasonable suspicion, “administrative search,” or random search.
The administrative search section of the policy authorizes checks on groups of students in a minimally-intrusive, non-discriminatory manner that doesn’t single out a particular individual or category of individuals, the policy said.
The policy allows for the possibility of all students being checked individually at the beginning of a random school day, but also includes the possibility of smaller group checks.
“The group selected for a random check may be a classroom(s), bus(es), or any other group of students determined by the principal,” according to the policy.
School districts are consulting with safety and leadership teams, and attorneys, on what policies should be in place.
While schools have the ability to conduct random searches, they must truly be random in order to avoid discrimination, Indiana School Boards Association Staff Attorney Julie Slavens said. For example, she said, schools could select a random classroom and have all those students be searched, such as in Edinburgh’s policy.
Schools must have reasonable suspicion to conduct searches of individual students due to the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
“Reasonable suspicion is if the administration has enough evidence to feel a search will produce contraband,” Slavens said. “If they believe contraband is in a purse or a pocket of a jacket, it doesn’t give them the right to do a strip search. Reasonableness is if they have independent evidence, witnesses or their own information or what they’ve seen with other information that indicates there would be reason to search.”
The detectors are just part of schools’ overall safety plans, which in recent years have included remodeling entrances to make them more secure, screening visitors and adding school resource officers.
Currently, Indiana law requires one certified school safety specialist per district, along with a safety plan. Franklin schools is adding a second school resource officer next year. At Clark-Pleasant, voters are being asked on Nov. 6 to approve an annual $1.5 million spending increase, would fund additional police officers in the district, along with extra security and mental health counselors.
