Hamden Council Questions ​“Emergency” Purchase Of School Metal Detectors

As Hamden’s school administration continues to roll out implementation of metal detectors at Hamden High, the town’s Legislative Council questioned whether the emergency purchase of four devices intended to screen for weapons was rushed.

On Tuesday night, a bid waiver for $12,750 to pay for the detectors was presented to the Council as an informational item. That came roughly a month after Mayor Garrett officially gave Superintendent Goeler the green light to undertake new security measures after multiple threats of gun violence, which were later deemed non-credible, led to three days of canceled classes. 

Concerns over those messages, spread via social media, paired with rising fights and behavioral issues — including a stabbing directly off school grounds that sent a student to the hospital and an incident in which a student was caught carrying a loaded gun in his backpack — led to demands from parents and students alike to start checking high schoolers for knives and guns. 

Then, during a special Board of Education meeting in December, Goeler announced that he was bringing in metal detectors primarily in an attempt to combat growing absences as parents kept their kids home from school out of fear.

The following weeks saw more debate from students, parents, and community members regarding whether or not the metal detectors were appropriate as well as whether the executive decision by Goeler and Garrett, which meant bypassing Council and Board of Education discussion and voting, was warranted. 

On Tuesday, two meetings were held that touched on the issue from different angles. In one Zoom call, Goeler spoke to the Board of Education about the practical concerns that have risen to the forefront since instituting metal detectors. He reported that Hamden High has managed to streamline the process that caused two-hour student tardiness in week one, such that students are at most 15 minutes late to class due to their new morning regimen. 

In another Zoom call-meeting, Council members reflected retroactively on the decision that created new issues with children missing class time while waiting for security guards to check them for weapons. 

“I have feelings on this, I’ll just say that,” Councilman Justin Farmer said when a receipt for the devices and bid waiver for Garrett Electronics (a company with no relationship to Lauren Garrett) showed up on the Council agenda. 

“I, too, have feelings on this,” echoed two other Council members, Katie Kiely and Sarah Gallagher.

“We understand that there are times where there are emergencies that arise. I would like to say, though, that the public safety and the well-being and the mental health and protection of the students in Hamden High is not something that happened in one week,” Kiely remarked. ​“I do understand why it happened, but it was not something unforeseen like a disastrous weather event.”

The gun threats, Kiely argued, were not the ​“first incident” at Hamden High, but there was ​“an immediate reaction” to them. ​“I do think there’s a reason there’s Legislative Council has an education committee with a chair; there’s a reason the Board of Education is supposed to be able to ask for approval for things like this…. This is definitely something that needs to be addressed, and I do think that just giving administrative approval, because there could not have been metal detectors without administrative approval, I think that that does take away from the ability to make sure that there’s a comprehensive safety plan put in place.

Buying metal detectors, Kiely said, ​“is not something that should’ve happened without debate or without the threat of crisis. So going forward I do think steps need to be changed and we need to respect the process and committees … conversations need to happen.”

“When we were in the heat of this,” back in December, Gallagher said, ​“there was lots of concern from parents and family members and what safety measures they wanted to have in place. So I understand the need for action, but again I would’ve liked to see more conversation with Council — with students, with parents, and with teachers about what measures were important.”

She noted that it took a week before walk-through metal detectors were actually implemented in schools. Before then, students were screened using wands borrowed from the Police Department. The required wait to enforce an ​“emergency procedure” made her further question whether an ​“emergency intervention” really took place.

“I don’t think there’s evidence that says they [metal detectors] make our children safer. I think they just make a more institutionalized, militarized environment for our young students and does not address the issues that cause or result in violence both in our schools and in our communities.”

Gallagher concluded: ​“So I’d like to know what the plan is for really addressing the root causes of what happens in our schools … I know that’s a larger conversation than this bid waiver but if we’re gonna have this informational item I think it really is a larger item that we need to discuss more comprehensively with a whole of government approach.”

Farmer jumped in to offer a quote from Martin Luther King Jr. following the holiday that had postponed the meeting from Monday until Tuesday: ​“We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there ​“is” such a thing as being too late. This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action.”

He said that bringing in metal detectors as an ​“emergency” measure constituted passivity rather than positive action. It bypassed ​“confrontation … struggles … and those late night sessions” that he said are required in discussing the ​“things that divide us.”

In Garrett’s memo to the Council, dated Dec. 14, the mayor wrote that ​“the School Administration made the decision to purchase the metal detectors through an emergency bid waiver. My signature on the emergency bid waiver should not indicate support for the use of metal detectors as a means to solve problems at Hamden High School. Violence in our schools is best addressed through proactive means such as mental health supports, conflict mediation, and restorative justice.

“The Board of Education should establish policy surrounding how and when metal detectors should be used.”

Following Tuesday’s Council meeting, Garrett told the Independent, ​“I think that we need to continue to have these conversations, and I don’t disagree with the Council. I signed the bid waiver because I assured the administration, parents and staff that I would work with them in providing safety, security, and more mental health that would actually mitigate some of the violence in our schools; I assured them that I would work with them.”

“Holding up any kind of procurement process holding up their purchase abilities would not be working with them,” she added. ​“That was the dilemma I had.”

Garrett noted that going through a bid process can take up to a couple of months. If the town hadn’t bought metal detectors, the school system may have continued to use Hamden Police’s hand-held wands, which took up significantly more time for staff and students alike. 

“Ultimately the Board of Ed needs to develop a policy about how metal detectors are going to be used. And while the expense of the metal detectors themselves were very small,” she said, ​“staffing is not going to be a small expense” over time. 

Garrett said that her daughter, who attends Hamden High School, had reported the same news as Goeler did on Tuesday: That every day looks a little smoother when it comes to getting students through the technology.

The Board of Education’s Policy Committee has not yet made time to convene and talk about how to govern use of metal detectors moving forward.

Garrett said that her responsibility in the matter remains the same: ​“I am committed to working with the Board of Ed and school administration to do whatever it takes to provide the resources that they need for getting more mental health support into the schools.”