Volusia County, Fla. — Leaders at Volusia County Schools say they are searching for solutions to prevent students from bringing weapons to campus.
According to VCS officials, there were 82 weapon incidents last school year, and 39 so far this school year. To address this issue, School Board members say they will present a proposal to update the Code of Student Conduct and Discipline at their next meeting.
The update would include a section that notifies all visitors to Volusia County Schools that they could be subject to a search.
They plan to add the following section under the Safety and Security portion of the code of conduct:
“All visitors to Volusia County school sites or events are on notice that searches may be conducted at random and without cause by the site administrator. Furthermore, the use of an electronic device may be utilized to assist with the search.”
But what’s intended as a safety measure has some parents and professionals concerned about the possible unintended consequences.
“As a parent, I don’t feel that without cause search would be acceptable,” Volusia County parent Jenifer Kelly said. “I feel it would violate my right as a parent to be able to consent to something like that.”
Instead, she says there are other, less invasive measures the school district can take that can be effective in keeping students safe.
“One of the things I brought up to them was the use of canines with the sheriff’s department, because if a canine would hit on something during a search of the school and that would give them cause to go ahead and further investigate,” Kelly said.
School Board Member Carl Persis said the policy is a recommendation that came out of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Committee, and its goal is to ensure students’ safety.
“We are doing this so that just maybe, students knowing and other people knowing that they are subject to a search, just maybe that by itself would prevent a student from bringing a knife to school or bringing a gun just because they think, ‘Well, I might get caught. And then if I get caught, then I’m going to really be in some serious trouble,’” Persis said.
While the language of the proposed update does not specify any limitations on who can be searched, or when or where it happens, Persis claimed that random searches would only be done in a class setting, not to individual students.
Elizabeth Albert, president of Volusia United Educators, said she is concerned about the residual effects these randomized searches could cause, like losing educational time.
“We are going to stop the process of delivering high-quality, systematic, coherent instruction on a whim, on a guess, because we’ve got the ability legally to randomly search,” she said. “Whereas, if there’s cause or suspicion to pull a child out, that’s something very different.”
She said this idea has several missing pieces of information.
“We are absolutely in favor of anything that increases the safety and security of the children and the adults on the campuses,” Albert said. “What remains to be seen with this agenda item is the depth and breadth of the change.”
Another concern she cited was the potential for this policy to be mentally and educationally harmful to the students if they are subject to a traumatic experience during these searches, which could lead to more damage.
“We want our schools to be environments where students feel safe. Yes, of course,” she said. “But also feel free to learn and to be welcomed and valued and respected, and not an environment that is somewhat like a police state. We don’t want our schools to be viewed as hard places.”
Albert said securing schools’ perimeters and having a single point entry might work as alternatives to the proposed policy.
Volusia County School Board members are expected to vote on the proposed update at their next meeting, which is scheduled for Tuesday at 4:30 p.m.