HIGH POINT — More of the body scanners that were tested during summer school at High Point Central High School will be leased and installed throughout Guilford County Schools high schools for the coming school year.
The school system will spend about $800,000 to lease 43 of the Evolv Express scanners, made by Massachusetts-based Evolv Technology, said Mike Richey, the school system’s executive director of emergency management and school safety, in an announcement Thursday at High Point Central.
The machines are expected to be installed in all 19 traditional high schools in mid-August before high school open houses take place, so parents and students will have a chance to see them and learn about them before the first day of classes, he said.
The devices can scan 3,600 people an hour, which is one per second and one-tenth the time that a traditional metal detector takes, and do not require anyone to empty backpacks, purses or other packages. The scanners work by looking for particular shapes, sizes and physical density consistent with guns, knives, bullets and other likely weapons.
A school employee will monitor a computer screen connected to each scanner, and when the machine detects anything suspicious the screen will immediately display the item and where it is, Richey said.
“We expect this to be a major deterrent factor against bringing weapons in,” Richey said, citing the experience of other school systems that have used the scanners.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools installed body scanners earlier this year after a sharp rise in the number of guns confiscated on high school campuses.
And because the scanners are so fast, students can enter the school without slow-moving lines forming, having little effect on the school environment, Richey said.
The Guilford County Board of Education voted in June to test the scanners during summer sessions at High Point Central and Smith High School in Greensboro. No weapons were found during the summer, Richey said.
The school system also has surveyed parents about the scanners, receiving “overwhelmingly positive” results, he said.
Federal grant money is available to pay for leasing the scanners for two years. After that, the school board would need to find another way to pay for them.
School officials say they don’t believe they will need to hire any additional staff to work at the scanners, Richey said. There currently is no plan to install scanners in middle schools, but that could be considered eventually, he said.
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