Starting next week, Fairfax County Public Schools will begin rolling out a pilot program intended to prevent guns and other weapons from being brought into school buildings.
Randomly selected high schools in the district will see the installation of OpenGate detectors at the building’s main doors, allowing students, faculty and visitors to be screened when entering the school.
OpenGate detectors, which are already in use around the D.C. area at places like Nationals Park and Smithsonian museums, are “designed to be more selective than traditional metal detectors” and minimize false alarms, according to FCPS.
“These systems are designed to provide fast and efficient screening of multiple people at the same time, allowing for a natural flow of entry,” FCPS said in a frequently-asked-questions page on its website.
Students will remove only laptops from their bags and hand them to a staff member before proceeding through the detector one at a time. If the alarm sounds, students will undergo secondary screening by “security, administrators and other designated staff.”
The OpenGate is designed to detect items such as handguns, long guns and knives. It may also alert on permitted items, like binders, eyeglass cases and umbrellas, among other things.
The detectors don’t use traditional X-ray mechanics, instead relying on low-frequency electromagnetic fields.
“This dynamic, non-contact approach ensures that the screening process is completely safe for all individuals, including children, pregnant women, and those with pacemakers or other medical devices,” FCPS said.
In a video to demonstrate how the detectors work, FCPS Superintendent Michelle Reid asked a group of students about how they’ve been affected by being “the first generation of students that have always had lockdown drills throughout your school career.”
“I think security is really the baseline for building a strong education, and it creates that functional and safe and secure environment where students feel that they’re safe to learn and express themselves,” one student said. “Without it, it really is a big inhibitor on an educational environment.”
Another student said it’s “helpful” to see FCPS being proactive, instead of reactive, though a third added that “it’s kind of scary” that weapons detectors are needed in the first place.
The pilot program will launch less than two months after two Edison High School students were arrested and charged on Feb. 20 with possessing a firearm on school property. A week later, two teens were charged after one of them reportedly displayed a gun at Mount Vernon Elementary School in Woodlawn.
However, plans to test weapons detectors predate those incidents. In December, the Fairfax County School Board approved a $3.4 million budget boost for safety and security upgrades, drawing from surplus revenue and money from a class-action lawsuit settlement with the e-cigarette company Juul.
FCPS had allocated another $3 million in August 2024 to “install security scanning technology at select high schools,” though at the time, school officials declined to provide details on the planned pilot program.
The school system has also been looking to expand a vape detector pilot and install additional security cameras, panic buttons and security vestibules.
The weapons detection pilot program will roll out to at least one school a week starting next Monday (April 21) and run through the end of the academic year. A potential expansion during the 2025-2026 school year is dependent on staffing and funding, according to FCPS.
