GREENSBORO, N.C. — Guilford County Schools is set to receive body scanners as part of a pilot program that starts next week.
The district said these scanners can spot weapons inside backpacks and jackets. Parents and students will be able to try them out at two open houses next week.
WFMY News 2's Grace Holland got answers to some of the biggest questions about these scanners.
How will these scanners stop intruders?
The district said this move is not about stopping intruders. It's about stopping violence inside schools.
Executive Director of Safety and Emergency Management Mike Richey said 84 percent of gun violence at schools occurs at high schools. In middle schools, it drops to 14 percent.
"The difference between those schools is the way that an active shooter situation unfolds," Richey said. "In elementary schools, it's almost always outside the school it's important to be sure that no one comes into the school. In your middle and high schools, it usually comes from inside the school."
GCS reports six guns were found on school campuses last school year.
The district is in the process of updating school buildings with cameras, secure doors and other measures to prevent intruders.
Will these scanners slow down students on their way to class?
Richey said students can move through these scanners quickly, so it should not delay getting to class.
"We want our children to maintain their backpacks, maintain their everyday items in their bags so that they didn’t have to get stopped and have an airport experience," Richey said. "With that, it would really defeat the purpose of having it for us."
He said one reason the district has not put in metal detectors was due to concerns about how long it would take to move students through.
Still, he admits the scanning process may take longer at the beginning of the school year.
"From schools that have already put this in place, we’ve seen they run about three out of 10 will get pulled aside the first week of school," Richey said. "That goes down to about one out of 10 or one out of 20 as the school year goes by."
An administrator or staff member will pull students aside who set off the scanner.
The goal is to find weapons but sometimes, the scanners may detect something harmless if it's inside a bag.
"An umbrella in a bag will absolutely set that machine off because inside the umbrella is an open cylinder with three or four layers of metal like a gun," Richey said. "People will learn you can hold the umbrella in your hand when you go through and we can see what it is and you can keep walking through."
If staff find a student with a weapon, SROs would respond and take it from there.