Photo Caption: (Left) Students walk through the new metal detector
system in the cafeteria. (Right) Assistant Principal Erica Culpepper uses a tablet to monitor the security line.
Photos Courtesy: West Brook Staff
October 23, 2023
By Kaylee Brown
Staff Writer
Safety in schools has been a hot topic of concern in the last 20 years. In 2023, West Brook High School started taking more precautions with a new metal detector system.
“We have great kids, but the new security is also here, not just for our students, but also everyone that enters our school,” Principal Nicholas Phillips said. “We want all our students to go home just the way their parents dropped them off.”
Phillips said he is also grateful to have a faster and easier way for students to go through the security check at the beginning of the school day when they enter campus.
“From a staff standpoint, we like it better than the previous system, where you had to walk through the metal detectors and administrators had to dig through your backpacks,” he said. “So this new system is a whole lot more efficient.”
Phillips said the new security scanners alert if a student’s Chromebook or anything with high metal content is still in their backpack. The metal detectors can pick up on any metal objects, like guns or large knives, but also objects that are not weapons, like umbrellas and three-ring binders.
Administrators ask that students hold objects that contain metal in their hands while going through the security line so they can easily identify what is setting off the system, Phillips said.
“It’s very similar to the metal detectors that they use at large music venues or if you’ve been to Disney World, it’s the same system that they use at Disney World,” he said.
Anything that sets off the metal detector shows up as a red box on the security guards’ iPads, Phillips said. The security guards pull those students aside to an assistant principal, who use their tablet to check the area where the red box appears on the tablet. If the student is holding the object (like an umbrella), the administrator can easily see what is setting off the detector and avoid having to search their backpack.
“This system that we have now has sped up the process of our morning security checks greatly,” Phillips said. “You all used to stand in lines outside the door for 10 to 15 minutes waiting to get in.”
“We love the new system because it gets you all into the building a whole lot faster,” he said. “If you don’t have anything in your bag to stop you, you just walk straight on through, keep on walking either to the main gym to sit down if you’re not eating breakfast, or if you’re eating breakfast, you can go straight down to the line to get your breakfast and sit down and eat.”
The administrators have not found any weapons this year, Phillips said. He said he believes that the new metal detectors are deterring students from bringing weapons to campus.
“The times that we live in now, it’s just one of those necessary evils," he said. "I think your parents send you to school to be safe.
"Unfortunately, we live in a society now where kids have access to weapons and guns. It’s unfortunate that some of our students, their parents allow them to have access to those things.
"We want you all to be safe, we want you to have a safe learning environment, it’s one of our mission statements. We want to make sure that you have that every day.”
“We have good kids, every once in a while, kids make a poor choice, but overall we’ve got great kids here at West Brook," Phillips said. "When you have a little over 2,100 kids, you’re going to have some kids that make poor choices. We live and learn, we learn from our mistakes and every day is a new day.
“We give kids tools to learn from those mistakes and not make those mistakes again, but as far as campus security, I think we have a great team of administrators and security officers that take campus safety very seriously.
“I think the tone and culture of this year is different, I think there’s just a different vibe this year compared to last year," he said. "Our attendance rate is up this year, we’ve been running around 93-94 attendance, so kids want to be here. That contributes to having a safe climate.”
Students are also noticing that security check in the morning is an easier process.
“I feel these new metal detectors are way better than our last ones,” sophomore De’Marion Smith said. “We all have plenty of time to come in, walk through and socialize with our friends. This was a great impact for our campus.”
Other students believe administrators should continue to improve campus security.
“I feel as if our security does help when it comes to checking for certain objects,” junior Miah Brown said. “But we are still checked for minor things that might just be as simple as an umbrella. Plus, we also still have a lot of other things around school that also need to be improved to keep us safe.”
So far, West Brook High School has not been on lockdown this school year. Last fall, a student was beaten by other students in the old F-hall bathroom in what the district press release called “a violent incident,” but now bathroom monitors are in place all around campus.
“We started off the year this year making sure our bathroom monitoring plan was strong,” Phillips said. “We had that in place to start the year and we haven’t had issues with the bathrooms.”
Anyone who has concerns about campus safety can make an anonymous report through the school website or Southeast Texas Crime Stoppers, Phillips said. Beaumont ISD’s Bullying Report form is at: https://www.bmtisd.com/page/4749.
