HENRICO COUNTY, Va. -- The Superintendent for Henrico County Public Schools said the system wants to balance safety with a welcoming school environment and will not move toward putting metal detectors in schools despite five incidents since last October involving students bringing guns to school.
It started at Tucker High School when just two days before Halloween, school administrators located a handgun and ammunition in a student's belongings.
Fast forward to mid-December, when a school resource officer located all the components to make a gun in a student's car at Henrico High School.
Almost a month later, staff recovered a gun in a student's car.
Then, on February 1, a student arrived with a gun, once again, at Henrico High School.
Now, just two days later, school staff found a gun and ammunition in a student's belongings at Godwin High School.
"This is a significant issue related to school safety and community safety," Cashwell said.
To address the problem, Superintendent Doctor Amy Cashwell said county leaders formed a new task force in the past month.
"So the Henrico County Manager, myself and the police chief are jointly co-chairing a task force that is looking at youth crime and violence, and really trying to understand all of the layers of this," Cashwell said.
Cashwell said putting metal detectors in schools has been a "topic of conversation," but "we've not moved in that direction" due to wanting to maintain a welcoming environment.
"At this point, we really believe that it's the relationships that are being fostered inside of our school communities that are the best preventative measure," Cashwell said.
Cashwell said the county's layered security measures that include school resource officers, school security officers and anonymous alerts are working to keep people safe.
"But certainly we're never complacent, and we're always thinking about layered safety and looking at our plans regularly," Cashwell said.
Virginia Beach Delegate Tim Anderson sponsored a bill this session that would have required a metal detector screen for everybody going in a school building in Virginia, but the bill died in committee.
