Not even an issue as serious as metal detectors in city high schools could escape the constant power struggle between local schools and the Chicago public school system`s central administration.
On Tuesday, a Chicago Board of Education committee took its first public look at a revised security policy on how and why schools use metal detectors. But debate during the committee meeting did not center on the 177 arrests for aggravated battery that occurred in city schools last year, or the 192 guns that police confiscated from students.
Instead, the debate was mired in who would be in charge of the metal detectors: individual schools or the central administration.
After the Chicago Police Department announced in June that it had made more than 10,000 arrests in and around public school property last school year, Mayor Richard Daley pledged to provide a metal detector for every public high school that requested one.
Metal detectors have been a hot issue among Chicago-area educators, but Daley`s pledge made it even hotter. The mayor said the city`s Public Building Commission would buy more than 60 metal detectors for the schools.
”We`ve all heard too many horror stories-guns going off accidentally, young children settling silly disputes with knives and guns, and gang warfare wreaking havoc in the hallways,” Daley said two months ago. ”The sad fact is that young men and women are showing up at school every day with weapons that can kill.”
The board`s Educational Support Committee is now planning to change security policies, including coverage of metal detectors.
Board attorney Joyce Price said Tuesday the new policy would give individual schools more freedom to use metal detectors. She said it was formulated after numerous meetings with city officials.
”The contracts (for the metal detectors) have been awarded, metal detectors are now becoming available,” Price said, ”and this is an effort to provide metal detectors to schools so they can use them in their schools this year.”
But some board members said the revised policy seems to require more red tape for individual schools and further hamper their efforts to react to dangerous situations that pop up on short notice.
The revised policy, which has not yet been reviewed by the school system`s security department, would require every school to submit a security plan covering everything from drug-sniffing dogs to searches and seizures.
The board`s Bureau of Safety and Security would have to approve the plan, but the administration`s involvement does not stop there. After the plan is approved, individual schools would be required to give the bureau 48 hours`
notice before actually using metal detectors, unless that requirement is waived in a prior agreement.
”I don`t understand why, once you have your staff trained and a plan in place, you would have to notify somebody else,” said committee Chairwoman Saundra Bishop.
Price said the notice would be necessary to give the school system`s security department time to coordinate other police resources, including Chicago police officers.
But she did not explain why a 911 call from a panicked school principal would not be just as effective.
And member Bertha Magana said the revised policy would ”add another level of requirement” for the school security plans. Magana said the previous policy did not explicitly state that schools had to seek Bureau of Safety and Security approval.
Board member Albert Logan wondered why such a debate had to occur in the first place, and asked for more flexibility on the part of both the central administration and individual schools.
”Local school councils should have the ability, once it`s approved, to do this without giving anybody 48 hours` notice,” he said. ”And because of the professionalism of our security department, they should be able to implement whatever security measures are necessary without local school council involvement.”
Price and all of the committee members agreed that having metal detectors to spot dangerous weapons would do little good unless sworn police officers are available to make arrests.
