Hempfield Area to spend $111K for 6 weapons detectors for random student screening

Hempfield Area School District plans to start this school year with a new weapons detection system.

At a school board meeting Monday, the board decided on buying six OpenGate weapons detectors for a little under $111,300. The machines cost about $18,000 each and were tested by the district earlier this year.

Safety and Security Committee Chairman Mike Alfery said the district plans to have the detectors in place by the start of the school year.

“The lead time on them isn’t that long, so we’re hopeful they will be (in place,)” he said. “This is going to get us moving in the right direction.”

The money for the purchase came from the district 2024-2025 general fund, according to Superintendent Mark Holtzman.

District officials initially sought $450,000 in state grants to pay for more detectors, but their request wasn’t approved. The purchase of 6 detectors is a step, Holtzman said.

The detectors will be rotated for random searches at all the district buildings and at some sporting events.

“The goal is to cover all buildings at all times in the future, but we had to take a step first. So this is the next step,” he said.

Further security protocols and projects will continue, Holtzman said, especially as part of conversations with administrators and the construction team for the high school renovation project.

“We are just at the entry level of the programming right now, to kind of come up with what are the requests, what are the needs, and try to meet them,” he said of the high school project.

Security upgrades have been a focus at Hempfield since October, when three high school students were caught exchanging two loaded handguns on a bus and in a school bathroom. In the wake of the incident, the district formed the new safety committee, which has met multiple times since.

Random searches at the district started in the fall of 2023 and continued through the year.