Metal detectors installed at CHS

The newest additions to Columbia High were being installed Monday afternoon.

CHS and Columbia County School District staff spent Monday installing metal detectors at each of the three entrances for students at the school.

When students return to class Thursday — CHS had a virtual learning day Monday to allow staff time to implement the changes and the district has canceled classes Tuesday and Wednesday for Tropical Storm Idalia — they will have to walk through a metal detector to get into the building.

It’s a safety measure that was necessary, CHS Principal Trey Hosford said.

“It was the right thing,” he said. “There was a lot of talk in our community we should have done it before and that’s on me. I’ll take ownership of that. I’ll take blame if people want to blame.

“I knew Friday night we were about to do this.”

The addition of the metal detectors comes after two armed teens climbed a fence at Tiger Stadium on Friday night to try to gain entrance into Columbia’s game against Buchholz.

Hosford said the move to install the devices was made right there at Tiger Stadium.

“I think the decision was made Friday night,” Hosford said, adding he was on the phone multiple times Friday night with Superintendent Lex Carswell discussing the situation. “We made the decision on the phone that starting Monday morning this was happening.”

But after a meeting Sunday afternoon involving district administration, CHS administration and Columbia County Sheriff’s Office personnel, Hosford said it became clear that the “new normal” at CHS wouldn’t be ready for students Monday.

Instead Monday became a prep day to install the metal detectors, test them and try to work through various scenarios to be ready once students return.

The school has already been using portable metal detectors at sporting events and other events with large gatherings. The district has already recently ordered and received larger units to have devices at every school in the district.

One or the other will be set up at the front door to the school for students who drive, at the car rider drop-off at the side of the school as well as the bus drop-off on the rear side of the building.

Those will be the only entry points into CHS, Hosford said.

“We’re doing everything we can to make sure that all 17,060 kids walk through one of these to start the day,” he said.

Students entering the building will remove their Chromebooks from their backpacks prior to entering the metal detectors, according to Hosford and Judy Tatem, the district’s director of safe schools.

If the metal detectors goes off, the students will go through without their backpack and then have their backpacks searched. According to CCS officials, keys, cell phones and belt buckles usually do not cause an issue for the metal detectors.

“If they don’t have anything in those backpacks that they shouldn’t it won’t trigger,” Hosford said

The metal detectors will be operated by CHS staff, although district office staff will help during the first few days. Hosford said school resource deputies will be “readily available” should someone have a weapon on them.

There will be other changes to increase security at CHS.

A gate on the front side of the building near the car rider drop-off that teachers and staff used to park behind the building will now be closed. Hosford said staff can still park behind the building but they must enter off County Road 252 through a security checkpoint.

Children of teachers and staff must all enter through one of the metal detectors, meaning staff that wants to park on the back side of the building must drop off their children at one of the entry points.

The move to metal detectors isn’t new. Once the district acquired the portable units early last school year for use at sporting events, Hosford said CHS tested it out a few times during morning drop-off.

However, it proved a challenge to get all the students trying to get into CHS from buses in a timely fashion.

“It’s been how do you do it and it not disrupt that day,” Hosford said.

But that concern is now secondary, Hosford admitted.

“We’re committed now,” he said. “If we start school late because of this, then that’s just what we have to do.

“It will be chaotic.”

That chaos, though, will lessen and the process will run better once staff and students get accustomed to it. Hosford said he views it like car rider lines, which always tend to be longer at the start of the year than later in the year.

“We know we’ll get better,” he said. “People start getting in the routine, start understanding and it goes smooth.”