With the start of the 2025 school year comes the new detection systems at our neighboring county of Albemarle. This new safety precaution has lately been the talk of our rival schools, Albemarle, Western, and Monticello, and it’s hard to not wonder if CHS will be next. This article will discuss the reason for the placement of the metal detectors, students’ emotions towards it, and the probability regarding how soon they will enter our school.
Metal detectors were implemented in high schools in and around our area for varsity sports games in 2024 to promote safety and reduce risks of injury. Just recently, on September 9th, 2025, Albemarle County made a bigger step and placed metal detectors in each of the schools’ doorways. Albemarle County Public Schools says it’s required for students to walk through the detectors every morning in hope to “prevent a tragedy like the ones that have occurred at schools across the nation from happening here.” Though with such a device, there are expected to be difficulties that come with. The Director of Staff and Security of Albemarle High School reports that they have problems with which sensitivity to set it to, and are still getting used to the new security system, which results in delays.
This issue is also shown in Monticello High School currently. The conditions are quite the same as Albermarle, according to a sophomore at MHS, a very long line trailing out of the school every morning. Monticello admin makes students pull out their computers and 3-ring binders before passing through the metal detector, indicating that Monticello may have the devices more figured out than Albemarle. Although this doesn’t make them any more efficient, the student reports that they need much improvement. The devices beep randomly, resulting in the process going slower, making it even more difficult to get to class on time with only a few transition minutes.
When asked if the student feels safer with the metal detectors, she said, “I’m not really sure if I feel safer since there are no police officers present, and just a huge line of kids coming out of the front doors.” She reports that you’re not really safe until you get inside of the school, and while the process has gotten better, it’s still very inefficient and messy. Putting this perspective into consideration, would you want the metal detectors implemented in CHS as well? When asking random students from our school, all responses were no. The common theme was that it would make getting into school a much longer process, possibly resulting in the decline of students coming to school.
How do you feel about the devices now being used at our neighboring county? Would you advocate for them to come to CHS or to disregard them? When I asked Dr. Malone to infer if they would enter our school, he said, “CCS does not have any intention that I know of to use weapon detectors beyond our current scope.” Hopefully our neighboring schools can find a more efficient way to use the devices, and create an improved system to reach their hope of a safer school.
