Dear Superintendent Laura Mitchell,
This past month you placed metal detectors in seven of the 31 entrances at WHHS. These rectangular boxes, you supposed, would placate our fears and be a comfort in our own school. You supposed that we would adapt to these. You supposed that we would believe these sensors of fear actually protect us.
You were wrong. Despite the fact that these metal detectors were supposed to give peace of mind to students and parents, their inconsistent use has disrupted the school day and altered the WHHS school culture.
Every day, we wait up to fifteen minutes just to walk through a metal detector, listening to its shrill response to metal earrings, car keys, zippers and pass on through as if nothing happened. We proceed to have our bags halfheartedly searched by a security guard, who will send us on our way–our daily welcome to school.
But not every entrance searches students the same way.
While some entrances require every student to pass through the metal detectors–such as Sulsar–others perform random checks, such as the one off of the main football field. “When I’m on the bus, they usually just let us through,” Aidah Witte, ‘24, said.

After the morning ordeal, we are permitted to exit and enter the building anytime in the period between classes, without going through the detectors again.
“If someone wanted to come through, they could just come through between classes because they never [check people] then,” Jackie Hall, ‘21, said.
How will this make us safer? If students can come and go, as they please, why have metal detectors to begin with? This should have been a matter of all or nothing, requiring metal detectors and searches to be consistent at every school entrance or none of them.
Additionally, because there are only seven detectors, students find unlocked and unguarded doors which they just slip through, sometimes, right in front of the security guards. These looming objects make students feel like suspects in their own school. “It feels like [WHHS] doesn’t trust us,” Kyndall Griffin, ‘23, said.
This feeling of being distrusted has caused rage, irritation and even hopelessness that our society has come to have so little faith in humans that we need to be inspected before we are allowed to learn. And the metal detectors in no way enhance the learning environment. Whenever the word is uttered by a teacher, student or administrator, conversation breaks out, only quelled when students have had their fill.
Because of these, class time has been disrupted and morning routines altered, yet few students feel safer because of them. Although an increase in school safety is important due to the prevalence of shootings and violence in our society, the use of metal detectors is not an effective method. Instead it feels like a precaution, a shrug of the shoulders after tragedy strikes saying “we did all that we could.” And maybe right now this is all you can do.
This past month, you placed metal detectors in seven of the 31 entrances at WHHS. You supposed that these would placate our fears. But to feel safe, we must be safe, and haphazardly placing metal detectors around some school entrances does not fit the bill.

Gallery • 3 Photos

Rehme Leanza

All views shared in the Opinions section of The Chatterbox belong to their respective authors, and may not represent the views of the publication as a whole.