As of May 2023, Opengate metal detectors, bag checks and Smartpass have been plaguing the campus of West Forsyth. These systems and practices have been put in place both to ensure “student safety” while attempting to ensure that parents/guardians feel safe about sending their children to school. Although there are good intentions behind Opengate, these systems do not make us any safer and are an outright waste of time.
West having an open campus is, in many ways, a major issue for safety. Anyone could walk onto our campus and we’d have no idea until a disaster were to strike, which Opengate attempts to prevent, but the lack of a closed campus also poses a major issue. With Opengate, we are forced to submit our personal bags and belongings for searching. While it may be required to make sure that students don’t have anything we aren’t supposed to have, it feels like an invasion of privacy. Not to mention that if you were to mistakenly lose or remove your wristband/ticket in the middle of the day, you’re forced to get rechecked and scanned which just interferes with schoolwork, and there’s nothing stopping student drivers from going to the parking lot and getting whatever they want out of their vehicle.
I’ve seen that Smartpass is a flawed system that doesn’t function the way it’s intended. Smartpass works by being a virtual hallpass that’s either student-imputed or teacher-imputed, and it also imposes restrictions on the times we may go to any location. Being limited in how many times a student can go to the bathroom or to another location on campus is incredibly discrediting and almost dehumanizing. When I go to school, I should feel as if I’m respected and that I matter, but with the Smartpass system, school feels more like a prison.
I can understand why some people may see these systems as actual safety measures, but these are false pretenses and only make us seem safe. I believe that if we want to be fully secure on our campus, then we need consistent security and enforcement, which would mean metal detectors in every building, more smartpass enforcement and almost jail-like rules. But on the other hand, no student would be happy with this solution and I think that it would decrease student morale more than it would help.
Answering the question of school safety isn’t easy; there’s no simple solution to such a complex issue that makes everyone happy on all sides. If we’re too loose on security, parents may panic. But morale for the students and teachers may increase. On the other hand, being too secure means more time spent being checked and scanned and less time focusing on learning. Some students have even missed first period due to them being late and getting stuck at metal detectors and checking in to the office.
There’s no clear answer, but we must form one that ensures teachers still have time to teach and students are content and respected, but not so lenient that someone could walk into a classroom, openly harm a student and only get a slap on the wrist as punishment.
