In 2025, thirty-two people were killed in school shootings across the nation.

A question that has always been on my mind is why Eleanor Roosevelt High School does not have metal detectors. The school is always pushing a safety-first agenda with the ID checks at the gates in the morning, and now with not allowing drop-offs during the day, so why have they never implemented metal detectors? Wouldn’t metal detectors be the most efficient way to keep the campus safe?

I feel like I always hear once a month that somewhere in the US, a school shooting occurred. CNN reported that seventy-seven school shootings happened in 2025 alone and kff.org reported that Delaware is the state with the most school shootings per 100,000, followed by DC, Utah, Arkansas, and Nevada.

So I decided to look into school metal detector use to see if it’s something that should be considered for our school, and found that they might not be as good of an idea as I originally thought.

In an article by wested.org, they argued this point, saying “As recently as 2017 some airports had fail rates [of metal detectors] as high as 95 percent.” Showing that they aren’t as successful as we might think.

The article also stated “schools with metal detectors are actually more successful in identifying weapons during searches without scanning devices.” Even schools with metal detectors have more successful methods than simply relying on metal detectors.

Another issue with metal detectors that came up was that they would heavily affect tardies and attendance. It is very time-consuming to have large numbers of kids going through a metal detector in the morning.

According to the WestEd article, “the overall screening process can be particularly slow to complete which may lead to additional issues for larger schools. Some may have to utilize delayed start times to accommodate getting all students through the screening process.”

Which very much applies to our school, with a student population of 4,386 students at time of publication. So it would take a really long time in the morning to get everyone in, resulting in disrupted learning time, which is something we don’t want.

Not only did my research show metal detectors to be time-consuming, but also costly. The average price of a body scanner metal detector is $6000. So let’s say the school placed them in the front entrance and stem entrance, and bought five, it would cost  $30,000, but they would also have to hire more security to manage the lines.

I spoke to ERHS Assistant Principal Kimberly Kemmer about the possibility of metal detectors at our school.

“Yes, there has been a conversation around increasing security especially in light of the world we live in,” Kemmer said. “I can tell you that the district has started to purchase their non-metal detectors, their weapon detectors, it’s a little thing you do when you walkthrough there two columns, and they can detect whether you have a weapon on you. Interestingly enough, the same ones they were piloting, I saw at the House of Blues when I went to a concert. A lot of people use them, so all of the high schools are piloting the weapon detectors for our events. It’s a little easier because its less people who come and go than letting 4,500 people walk through. Yes, it is in the talks, yes, we do have weapon detectors that we have been using.”

Sophomore Trent Claudius offered a student opinion on if Metal Detectors would be a good idea.

“No, I think it would be bad because any little metal things that people have, like paper clips and belts, would flag it and make it way harder for people to enter the school in the morning rush-hour,” Claudius said.

So in the end, it seems that while metal detectors might not be the best option, safety remains a top area of concern that we are always looking to improve in.