Franklin Co Charter System Taking Extra Steps to Ensure School Safety

A report of school weapons detection systems not working properly has
Franklin County Charter School administration looking into ways to better monitor their accuracy.

In the fall of the 2023-2024 school year, it was reported to School Superintendent Melanie-Burton Brown that a law enforcement officer went through a weapons detection system at one of the schools with his gun holstered but the system never went off.

However, in a recent interview with Burton-Brown and Assistant Superintendent of Operations Carl Dekker, Dekker said it was months before the office learned of the alleged detection failure.

Burton-Brown added that no school staff witnessed the incident and it was not reported to her office until it was brought up in a conversation with Franklin County Sheriff Steve Thomas in January.

The weapons detection systems were purchased and installed in 2023 after there had been two confirmed incidents in which guns were found on a school campus. Since their installation, Burton-Brown said there have been no reports of students bringing guns to school.

However, in light of the alleged incident last fall, Burton-Brown and Dekker decided that there needs to be a way of documenting that the weapons detector systems are working. So, the administration has enlisted the help of School Resource Officers (SRO’s).

Additionally, Burton-Brown said they’ve also been working on adjusting the settings on the weapons detection equipment to make sure they’re picking up anything in students’ bookbags that might be suspicious.

Burton-Brown noted there are some items that the systems will detect that aren’t weapons such as larger ring binders, Chrome books, and metal Yeti cups.

She said high school students know to take those items out of their bookbags before going through the detectors.

Dekker said if something suspicious inside a bookbag is picked up by the detector, there is a process in place to check it out.

Dekker said the test/log system will begin this fall with the new school year.

You can hear the entire interview with Burton-Brown and Dekker this Sunday on Community Forum which airs at 12:03p after ABC News.