The news comes two days after a student in another Triad school district was caught with a gun and live ammunition.
ROCKINGHAM COUNTY, N.C.— This school year, Rockingham County Schools is stepping up safety even more. On August 21, they stated that all of their middle and high schools will have new weapon detection systems made by CEIA.
The CEIA OPENGATE looks like the kind of detectors you might see at a concert or sports event. Under the new system, kids don’t have to take off their backpacks, purses, or other bags in order to be quickly screened.
“In today’s world, making sure our schools and school families are safe and secure is the most important thing,” RCS Director of School Safety Sean Gladieux said in a statement. “The addition of weapons detection systems is a proactive measure to enhance our district safety protocols and protect our students, staff, spectators and visitors.”
WFMY News 2 was able to see how the system works from the inside. Greatieux told us that if the warning goes off, it will beep and use an app to let school officials know.
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“The ability for the mobile app and the weapons deduction system to talk to each other.” Those are the people we’d most like to be our principals, assistant principals, and athletic leaders for our school. Our SROs will be going from classroom to classroom. “They might be at more than one checkpoint or running traffic lights, so if they are needed, they would be called over the radio,” he said.
The district said that the device will be used to check people for weapons at all sports events, at The Booker T. Washington Learning Center, and at all middle and high schools in the district.
“We feel this added layer of safety and security is beneficial to everyone,” said Gladieux.
This news comes just a few days after something happened in a different Triad school district. Police found that a student at Winston-Salem’s Carver High School had brought a gun and live ammo to school.
Forsyth County Sheriff Bobby F. Kimbrough, Jr. told WFMY News 2 that after what happened at Carver, he begged local schools to add more safety measures to make sure incidents like this don’t happen again.
“The time was yesterday for metal detectors to be in all of our schools,” he said. “I understand the cost, however, I can’t help wondering what price we will pay for not having them.”
The OPENGATE method was first used in some Rockingham County schools during the 2023–2024 school year. April 8 was the first time J.E. Holmes Middle did this, and already high schools in the county are using them at sports events.
Anyone who wants to can go to a safety training put on by the Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office on Thursday, August 22 at 9 a.m. at Rockingham Middle School.