To address gaps in uncovering vapes, administrators are implementing handheld metal detector wands to assist the Zeptive vape detectors. The wands help identify students who may be carrying vapes to school, enabling administrators to take disciplinary actions when necessary.
In a newsletter sent on Jan. 21, Principal Rick Barnes stated that student search procedures “are standard practice in schools and are also used in situations involving potential weapons or other prohibited items.”
While the number of vape and marijuana alerts detected by the Zeptive Alarms has been frequent, the vapes and e-cigarettes themselves are not always found.
“The students know that they’re going to be searched because they know there’s an alarm in two of the bathrooms,” Barnes said. “So, when the alarm goes off, and multiple students don’t [appear to] have anything, it leads you to believe that they’re being hidden.”
After comparing the number of detections triggered by Zeptive Alarms, more alerts have been sent to assistant principals than the number of vapes found. Barnes said it became clear that additional measures were needed.
“Until we got the alarms, we never had an idea of how much vaping was being done,” Barnes said. “Now, we have a sense of how frequent it is. However, when we were hearing that students were hiding them in places that we wouldn’t traditionally search, then we realized there’s something else going on.”
Due to the difficulty in finding vapes, Barnes reached out to Timberlane High School for help, which has been using metal detector wands as an alternate way to navigate this issue.
“They kind of shared their process [of targeting vapes] with me, and showed the same handheld wands you would see at the airport,” Barnes said. “Because all vapes have some sort of metal component, it will set off the wand.”
Currently, LHS has purchased one handheld metal detector wand, which Barnes and the four assistant principals will use.
“We’re really focusing on the wands as a tool to use against vaping,” he said. “It’s not like every search is going to involve a wand, although almost 98% of our searches probably involve suspected banned substances.”
According to House 1 Assistant Principal Robert Callahan, the goal of the metal detector is prevention rather than punishment.
“I hope that the wands will act as a deterrent, so they will act in two ways,” Callahan said. “One is that the students don’t decide to bring their vapes to school, and two is that, when we use the wands, we want students to give up the vapes they have.”
While the wands will be used during private searches on school property and at large school events, Barnes said that the wands will only be used when there is reasonable suspicion.
“We’re not going to wand search everyone when they go to prom, only if there’s cause to suspect a student,” Barnes said. “We already have a procedure where students line up for a cursory search, but it would take too long to search every student. Now, if a student seems impaired, then we might search for them.”
Besides identifying students who possess vapes, Barnes said that the wands can also clear students who are wrongly accused.
“If someone isn’t doing something and they’ve been accused, it will exonerate them,” he said. “If the wand doesn’t get hit, that actually increases trust for that person, because we know not all kids are vaping, they might just be in there when the alarm goes off.”
As the administration begins to follow the new student search procedure, Barnes plans to purchase up to four wands and expand the number of Zeptive Alarms throughout the building. More information to come on the matter as more details are released by Barnes.
“Once we have enough of the wands in place, then I think we’ll start to increase the number of vape detectors,” Barnes said. “Eventually, I think every bathroom should have them.”
