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This article does not have as many points as the others but it touches upon the debate of metal dectectors, leaning toward getting rid of them. Stating Metal detectors do not make a school safer that they create problems between students and police officers. These problems create unreasonable arrests and other unjust protocol.

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A productive day of bargaining between leaders of the Denver school district and its teachers union stretched into Thursday morning as the two sides met separately to work toward a deal.

That deal got struck just after 6 a.m. Thursday, more than 20 hours since the bargaining session began and just before the fourth school day of a teacher strike would have begun. Here's our story about the deal.

As we did Tuesday, our team spent Day 3 of the strike - and the entire night - tracking developments across the city. You can catch up on the highlights here, including scenes from picket lines, a detour for some cute dog pictures, and details from bargaining.

6:30 a.m. That's a wrap, except for preschool families

We've just posted a story about the deal, so tune in there for details. We'll have more throughout the day on what the agreement means for teachers, students, schools, and the education policy world.

For now, the day is beginning with praise for the Denver district and its teachers union for toughing out talks - here's a tweet from Gov. Jared Polis - and questions among educators and families about what's supposed to happen in schools today.

Here's the official word from Denver Public Schools:

What's your school like today? Let us know. And if you're among the readers who appreciate Melanie for her bargaining all-nighter and the entire team for its tireless strike coverage, you can always donate to Chalkbeat. Thanks for joining us on this journey!

6:12 a.m. Dawn breaks with a deal

This is what you need to know about Denver's response to the teachers union's latest proposal:

Followed shortly by this:

It's a Valentine's Day love-fest! One clear highlight: Teachers will continue to get bonuses for teaching at high-poverty schools. We'll have all the details about the deal shortly.

We're also playing fast and loose with definitions of time right now. The official sunrise today in Denver is 6:54 a.m. Schools start opening a little bit after that. A big question today will be what happens inside them.

5:30 a.m. Back at the table

Union negotiators are back at the bargaining table after a late-night break, more than 19 hours after this session first started. Rob Gould says the union has a new proposal: "We think it may end the strike."

2 a.m. Thursday Into the wee hours of the morning

It's now been about six hours since the two sides last appeared together at the bargaining table.

We still don't have a clear answer to the very practical question on so many people's minds: If a deal is reached after all these hours, are striking teachers returning to work Thursday, or will they be out at least another day?

We heard from one school-level union organizer who told us Wednesday night that teachers should prepare to strike again until they hear otherwise, that a tentative deal should include a return-to-work date, and that union members do not need to vote to vote to ratify a deal before returning to classrooms.

We'll keep you posted.

11:35 p.m. When is the tipping point?

Both sides continue to work separately on their proposals. It's not clear how much longer they'll work, but if they weren't hoping to reach a deal before dawn, presumably they would have wrapped up for the night with a plan to meet tomorrow.

One of the outstanding questions is whether teachers will go back to work tomorrow, if a deal is reached tonight. The later we go the less likely that seems.

9:12 p.m. No, we haven't forgotten about you

The district came back briefly a while ago to agree to some aspects of the union salary schedule, but since then, the two sides have been in caucus, crunching numbers. The optimists have lost the Chalkbeat Colorado office pool about what time we would see a deal.

7:11 p.m. Getting closer

That was fast. After a short caucus, the union came back to the table and gave a lightning-fast presentation on its new proposal - which moved the two sides closer.

The union accepted the district's proposed salary schedule of 20 "steps" and seven "lanes" separated by increments of 18 college credits (or equivalent training courses).

"We see how far you all have moved," lead union negotiator Rob Gould said, "and in an effort to get a deal tonight, we're accepting your number of lanes and your steps."

The union also accepted the district's proposal to cap the number of "professional development units," or training courses, teachers can do at two per year. It had previously proposed a cap of three. The number matters because teachers can use those courses to change lanes and get raises.

There are still several areas of disagreement, including the size of the bonuses and incentives for teachers who work in high-poverty schools and hard-to-fill positions.

The district is now reviewing the union's proposal.

5:40 p.m. 'This is big': The district offers a new proposal, and one big sticking point remains

The negotiators are back - and the district has a new proposal that more closely matches what the union has been asking for.

The changes involve both the "steps" and the "lanes" in the salary schedule. The district's new proposal has 20 steps, which is the number the union has been pushing for. (The district had been holding firm at 30.) The lanes have shifted in the district's proposal as well, requiring teachers to earn fewer credits to jump a lane and increase their pay.

The district also offered a compromise on the "longevity" raise for educators with 10 years of service in the district. It has to do with educators who wouldn't be able to cash in their longevity because they're already at the highest lanes.

But the two sides have not come to an agreement on a crucial point: retention bonuses for teachers in the district's 30 "highest-priority" schools. The district's proposal keeps those at $3,000.

The union is going to meet to discuss the new proposal. But the mood remains positive, with teachers clapping, Melanie reports. "This is big," Gould said.

One reason the union has pushed to end the retention incentive is because it believes putting that money into base pay will do more to keep teachers.

But if the district is offering a salary schedule the union can live with, along with the highest-priority incentive, members might not mind keeping the incentive after all.

"The district has absolutely met us their halfway," said Rachel Sandoval, a teacher at Godsman Elementary School in southwest Denver, who has followed the negotiations closely. "We're going to have to meet them at some point."

3:58 p.m. What teachers say about the issue on the table right now

In the library basement, the mediator has just let observers know that the union and district are each meeting to discuss contract terms right now. The official word: "I have the parties upstairs working really really hard on some things."

While we wait for them to return, take a look at our newest story, about what teachers across the district say about the bonuses and incentives that make up the biggest remaining sticking points.

"I've never worked anywhere where they couldn't tell me how much I'm making," one teacher told us about the bonuses she has received for working at a high-poverty school. "It was weird to me." The story features 10 teachers' perspectives.

3:18 p.m. Attendance is holding steady

This just in from Denver Public Schools:

Those numbers are very similar to what the district shared on Monday, suggesting that families and teachers haven't wavered since the strike's first day. But there's a big asterisk: "This is a joke," one educator tweeted in response. "I know this is an average but student attendance is way below 75% at the school I work at. Yesterday it was 50% at best."

2:56 p.m. A first-person perspective

A core issue in the Denver teachers strike is that the district's salary-and-bonus system has left many teachers with inconsistent pay and less ability to plan for the future.

We just published a First Person essay from one of those teachers, Charlie Gaare, who says she changed her plans for growing her family because of how she's paid. Check it out here.

2:08 p.m. Canines for K-12

Today is heavy on policy details and if you're like us, you might need to rest your brain while the district and union pause their negotiations. We've got the right content for you: a roundup of the dogs of the Denver teacher strike. See the whole thing here.

1:55 p.m. "We know it's important to you"

This afternoon's negotiations are filled with signs that the Denver teachers union is eager to reach a deal with the district over teacher compensation. Here's the latest from Melanie:

In the past 50 minutes, it feels as though the district and the union have moved closer than ever. The union accepted much of the district's proposed language around how teachers complete "professional development units." The union also agreed to the district's idea of giving teachers a raise for 10 years of service.

Even more significant: Union negotiators said they'd be open to the idea of providing incentives to teachers who work in "highest-priority" schools. The district wants to give teachers who return to those schools year after year a $3,000 retention bonus. Up until today, the union had rejected that idea. Instead, it wanted to use that money to increase the salaries of all teachers.

"We are open to the incentive because we know it's important to you," lead union negotiator Rob Gould said. "And we're willing to entertain your ideas if we can get the base salary schedule that our teachers need."

The two sides are now caucusing, or holding internal discussions.

1:33 p.m. Mixed results for "highest-priority" incentives

The Denver district says giving teachers at certain schools more money is essential to ensuring that they are staffed with strong teachers. But the incentives that have been in place since 2015 - and that are being discussed at the bargaining table right now - haven't made that happen. From our story last week:

The district began offering an incentive to teachers at 30 "highest-priority schools" in 2015. These schools have high rates of students living in poverty, students who switch schools from year to year, special education students, and English language learners.

At nine of the 28 schools that have consistently received the incentive, teacher retention has been higher each year than it was in 2015.

But at six schools, retention has been lower each year than it was in 2015. At the remaining 13 schools, retention has gone up and down during that time period.

One thing district and union officials are coming to terms on right away: not calling the schools "hard-to-serve," a common shorthand for schools that have many needy students and high teacher turnover. After union negotiators criticized the term, interim Denver schools chief Susana Cordova said she agreed. "It is offensive to start from a deficit approach," she said.

1:19 p.m. It's happening

For the first time since the strike started, negotiations have turned to pay incentives for teachers at the Denver district's "highest-priority" schools. The district wants to give teachers at those schools an extra $3,000 a year, but the union wants the bonuses eliminated entirely in favor of increasing base pay for all district teachers.

This is among the final remaining details standing between negotiators and a deal, but it's a big one - and it stands for in a longtime ideological debate in the education world.

1:15 p.m. A buoyant post-lunch mood

District and union officials are back at the negotiating table after a break to caucus (the union) and have lunch (both sides). The union's lead negotiator, Rob Gould, got a rock star's reception from the observers, who are almost all district teachers on strike, according to Melanie. Cordova and an audience member cracked jokes with each other. And there's also news:

Many had hoped the strike would end after today, and Gould seems determined to reach a deal with the district, saying that he's not prepared for another night with little sleep.

11:48 a.m. Energy on the picket line, and excitement about a possible resolution

Our reporting team is getting the message loud and clear from teachers on the picket lines today: They're committed to the fight but excited for the strike to end. See this video of North High School English teacher Megan Ross that Eric filmed for an example:

What's the mood like on the #DCTAstrong picket line on Day 3? North High School English teacher Megan Ross gives her take. #DenverTeacherStrike #DenverTeachersStrike pic.twitter.com/p38ni7wocD

- Chalkbeat Colorado (@ChalkbeatCO) February 13, 2019

The mood appeared similar at Trevista at Horace Mann, one of 30 "highest priority" schools where teachers get pay incentives the union wants to eliminate. Teachers at highest-priority schools joined the strike at a slightly lower rate on Monday. Second-grade teacher Emily Kil told Eric that she and her colleagues are as committed to the strike as they were on Monday.

"It is hard on Day 3. You're a little more physically tired," Kil said. "But mentally we're still in the fight and we're hoping that it's going to end today.

11:15 a.m. So about those incentives ...

While the union caucuses, or meets in private, to discuss the district's offer, we'll take the opportunity to note again that some issues that had seemed like major sticking points haven't come up this week. Those are the size of bonuses for teachers at high-poverty schools, and whether teachers who return year over year to 30 schools designated as "highest-priority" should get any extra pay at all.

Are union and district officials getting easy disagreements out of the way first and saving the tough stuff for last? If that's the case, it's hard to imagine the strike ending quickly.

Or are these incentives not actually that contentious? That would be surprising, given how union and district officials have talked about them in the past. At some point in the not-too-distant future, we'll know the answer to these questions - and how much teachers in these categories of schools will be paid under ProComp going forward.

10:55 a.m. Claps and snaps as negotiations open

Negotiations are underway. Here's an early dispatch from Melanie:

First up today: The district brought a new proposal that elicited clapping and snaps of approval from some teachers in the audience. The biggest hit? That the 45 hours required to complete a "professional development unit" - training courses that can be cashed in for raises - could include time during or outside the school day. The union is caucusing to consider the proposal.

Want to hear what satisfied union supporters sound like? Check out this video posted by a local TV reporter:

THE SOUND OF PROGRESS!

The snaps and clapping coming from @DenverTeachers members as @DPSNewsNow explains their latest proposal. A sign that the DCTA likes what they're hearing from DPS and we are closer to a deal. #DenverTeachersStrike #DPSstrike pic.twitter.com/DyWdfMtIZq

- Shawn Chitnis (@shawnchitnis) February 13, 2019

10:44 a.m. A cake for Cordova

A few union supporters showed up to negotiations this morning bearing a supermarket sheet cake iced with a message for Denver Superintendent Susana Cordova: "You can eat it too!"

The cake is a reference not to Marie Antoinette and class warfare but to an exchange Cordova had with lead union negotiator Rob Gould Tuesday night.

As the two sparred over whether teachers should be allowed to complete training courses during school hours, Gould asked, "You're saying that we can't have our cake and eat it too?" Cordova responded: "I thought we were in the business of creating a new recipe for a different cake."

10:37 a.m. Your morning teacher strike earworm

Here's another snippet from this morning's pickets: a video of spirited teachers gathered across the street from North High School. We challenge you not to get the Twisted Sister cover stuck in your head.

Energy not flagging at 38th and Speer across from North HS. #DenverTeacherStrike #DenverTeachersStrike pic.twitter.com/buqv3Idwol

- Chalkbeat Colorado (@ChalkbeatCO) February 13, 2019

10:35 a.m. A parent's view

Just a reminder that schools are operating with threadbare staffs and offering instruction that's limited at best. The union says the situation underscores how essential teachers are, while the district is focused on maintaining stability and security for students. The dynamic has left students and their families making tough decisions about whether to attend.

"My Junior just left school to 'do real work' (ie study AP History) because the sub handed them worksheets," Aimee Giese tweeted this morning. "My son is also negativ[ely] affected by #DenverTeachersStrike because the media rooms are closed so he can't work on his AP Art projects (which by the way, is where he's applying for college)."

10:08 a.m. A compromise

As Melanie waits for bargaining to start, here's a reminder of one area where the union has ceded some ground: around the extra training hours required for teachers who want to move "lanes" and increase their pay. When talks opened on Tuesday, the district wanted all of the hours to happen outside of the regular workday, and the union wanted teachers to be able to complete "all or part" of those hours while they're already at school. Last night union negotiators compromised to "part."

10 a.m. Back in the basement with Rocky

Negotiations are supposed to open any minute. Melanie Asmar will share up updates from the basement of the library. Here are the first two: First, the crowd of union supporters has been joined by a scaly ally: Rocky, a class lizard who accompanied a teacher to today's negotiating session.

Plus, Melanie reports that Tuesday's burrito and pizza odors have been replaced by the smell of hot coffee - a necessity after last night's talks ended just 10 hours ago.

9:15 a.m. A sunny day on the picket line

If there were any fears that energy might flag among striking teachers, this morning's picket lines should put them to rest. We're seeing social media posts from across the city featuring red-shirted educators and their allies with megaphones, signs, and songs. Here's one example, filmed by a teacher outside Greenwood Elementary School:

The Montbello march is on the move! Headed to Chambers and Gateway. #DenverTeachersStrike #strike @DPSNewsNow @DenverTeachers #montbellostrong #teacherstrike pic.twitter.com/CUGFP5H9U7

- Autumn Jones (@faithful_writer) February 13, 2019

Want us to see your pictures? Tag @ChalkbeatCO when you post them!

8:30 a.m. No official attendance or participation data yet

How many teachers joined picket lines on Tuesday? How many students made it to school? There's no official data yet, though the word from the district is that conditions on Day 2 were "about the same as Day 1." (As a reminder, just over half of teachers participated in the strike's first day, according to the district, and three-quarters of students attended school.) The numbers matter because they're a useful barometer of how much stamina the union has and how confident members of the public remain about safety at schools.

8:15 a.m. Checking in on immigrant teachers

Remember how Denver Public Schools warned schools that it would report teachers who joined the strike to immigration authorities? The district apologized and said the warning was an error, but our reporters found that the episode is still having an effect on at least some of the 128 teachers whose visas are dependent on their employment.

Here's what an teacher from Venezuela told us on Tuesday: "I would prefer to be outside [picketing]. ... I want to make my voice heard. But it's scary. I don't know what could happen, and it's my family that is at risk." Read the whole story here.

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NYCLU: First step to school safety is rejecting metal detectors

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Many city schools rely on metal detectors, security guards, and zero-tolerance policies to keep discipline under control. They don't have to, according to a new report about alternate strategies to keep schools safe. The report, produced by the New York Civil Liberties Union and the Annenberg Institute for School

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Whenever I think of metal detectors in schools I think of the school to prison pipeline. Which is defined as " also known as the school-to-prison link or the schoolhouse-to-jailhouse track, is the disproportionate tendency of minors and young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds to become incarcerated, because of increasingly harsh school and municipal policies. Which is why I added this article it makes you think can schools really only be a place of healing or of harm not both? And if this is true for some students adding these machines is direct harm for them.

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Schools can be places of healing or they can be places of harm. There is no in-between. I came to learn this through my work as an attorney working at the intersections of youth justice and education equity. I worked in Philadelphia fighting to keep marginalized youth in schools, and to ensure that for the youth who were pushed into juvenile prisons, those prisons were held accountable for providing education.

I now work in New York serving youth who have been impacted by the criminal system. I have the privilege of working with youth in New York City's public schools, where we provide workshops about legal rights, and I work with youth who are imprisoned on Rikers, hoping to help them put the pieces of their lives back together, including getting back into school.

Overwhelmingly, I see what everyone knows already about youth who have juvenile or criminal system involvement - it often begins with school. Schools have a unique opportunity to be a turning point for marginalized youth. I hope that we can use transformative justice to make schools tools for liberation.

On Sept. 27, 2017, a high school student named Matthew was stabbed to death by his schoolmate, Abel, in a Bronx high school. It was the first in-school murder in New York City Schools since 1993. The stabbing happened in front of a classroom of students.

My heart breaks for Matthew's family and friends. And as Matthew's family and classmates grieve, advocates like myself want to encourage schools and partner with them as they work toward healing our children. There are strategies that communities can build upon to create safety instead of criminalization. We can make schools into healing, affirming environments for all students if we invest our resources and our hope into making that a reality.

Witnessing a murder is an Adverse Childhood Experience that will forever affect each student in that classroom. The trauma students experienced can affect academic performance and their interactions with one another. Schools should develop a deep, thoughtful understanding of what students need, by listening to students.

For decades, whenever parents and school leaders learned about violence in schools, our schools and government responded with knee-jerk reactions: requests for more metal detectors, more police presence, more suspensions and treatment of students as threats. I worry that is the inclination in the aftermath of Matthew's death. Criminalization impedes learning and does more than good. Worse, it diverts precious resources away from strategies that have the potential to transform schools.

Decades ago, prominent academics and political figures touted the idea of "superpredators." Our country put youth in juvenile prisons across the country. In New York, we decided that youth as young as 16, unable to legally rent an apartment, were old enough to be sent to Rikers Island. We now know that way of thinking was wrong, and instead can use options that address the main issues at the heart of school violence, including trauma.

School-based mental health are a broad array of preventative interventions that can include assessments, counseling , referral activities and . These services should be provided through trained professionals, teachers (where appropriate) and school staff with a deep understanding of adolescent brain development and the needs of black, Native and Latinx youth, and LGBTQ youth in particular. We should not invest resources in training school safety agents to respond to crises, including bullying or interpersonal conflict. Communities should shift resources f rom practices that aim to expel and dehumanize students to practices that can address the underlying causes of violence within our schools.

Matthew's mother told The New York Times that his school used to have a program where staff walked students home from school, "creating a bond," but the program no longer exists. Teachers and restorative justice coordinators all share that a fundamental principle of restorative justice is relationships that staff build with students, allowing them to pre-empt and resolve conflict.

Schools in New York City have begun the work of supporting students. Schools like Jordan L. Mott Middle School, The James Baldwin School (Outward Bound), and Edward A. Reynolds West Side High School have invested time and energy into "processes and structures for building community , repairing relationships when conflict happens, and supporting everyone to be accountable to one another."

I recognize the common fear that if schools do not utilize strict zero tolerance policies, metal detectors or police there will be widespread violence that puts children at risk. But the evidence points to the opposite: Metal detectors have a harmful impact on students' perceptions of school safety, and they do not reduce the incidents of physical conflicts between students. Study after study also show that the communities where metal detectors are present are often communities of color , which furthers a false narrative of youth of color, particularly black and Latinx youth, being inherently violent.

I've witnessed students being cursed out first thing in the morning by school safety because they forget to take off a belt before going through a metal detector, and I know it doesn't keep them safe. Yet historically the NYC Board of Education assigned nine officers and rearranged students' schedules just to accommodate time-consuming metal detector screenings each morning. This requires significant resources to pay for law enforcement salaries.

I hear that quality interventions like restorative justice and mental health support are too expensive, but if we reallocate resources away from law enforcement children can thrive. According to the Urban Youth Collaborative and the Center for Popular Democracy, NYC has more than 5,500 New York Police Department personnel in its schools, compared to only 2,800 full-time counselors. Alternatively, schools can invest in counselors, therapists and evidence-based programs, which can pay dividends in terms of student engagement, student safety and the long-term quality of a school.

Police presence . If instead, each school had multiple school psychologists and quality therapists available it would cost roughly the same amount to operate a weapon detection system, but likely have positive and far-reaching benefits for student feelings of safety and student achievement. increases the likelihood that our youth will be arrested and increases racial disparities in the criminal legal system. Our national consciousness has been shocked by videos of , particularly black and Latinx youth , being thrown to the ground and handcuffed by law enforcement for things as small as not taking off headphones
Ashley Sawyer is a lawyer who works with children and youth at the intersections of the juvenile or criminal legal systems, and education. She currently works at Youth Represent in New York City and previously worked at the Education Law Center
in Philadelphia. She tweets at @ACSawyerJustice

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Healing, Not Metal Detectors, Will Dismantle the School-to-Prison Pipeline for Good

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Schools can be places of healing or they can be places of harm. There is no in-between. I came to learn this through my work as an attorney working at the intersections of youth justice and education equity.

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Not sure how this fits in completely but it does touch upon how the mayor will address the debate about school safety

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As the superintendent of Houston's Independent School District, Richard Carranza was responsible for one of the nation's largest school systems. But when he takes the reins from retiring schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña in the coming weeks, he will oversee a system that is five times larger and arguably the country's most complex.

But numerous political and policy challenges remain. Here are seven issues Carranza will be forced to contend with in the coming months:

1. How will he address the heightened debate about school safety and discipline?

2. Will he be able to balance his wishlist with funding challenges?

The mayor's broader to outfit all schools with computer science classes, hire literacy coaches, and high-need schools with social services all add up to hundreds of millions of dollars that could be harder to come by. On top of that, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has shifting more of the cost of charter schools into the city's budget (including paying for private space ).

3. What will be the future of the city's beleaguered school turnaround program?

The new chancellor is taking on the role at a precarious moment for de Blasio's controversial and expensive "Renewal" school turnaround program. De Blasio initially described the initiative as a three-year effort to induce "fast and intense" improvements at the city's 94 lowest-performing schools. But with a mixed record including 23 mergers and closures (and 21 schools being phased out for showing improvements), the Renewal program is now headed into a fourth year with just 50 remaining schools.

In New York, City Hall will help determine the Renewal program's fate - and Carranza may be willing to help reset the program given the parallels to his own approach in Houston. But with dozens of schools remaining in the program, he will have to manage contentious decisions about their fate, and also hire someone to manage it.

4. How will he handle pressure to better serve the system's highest-need students?

New York City has struggled to serve its growing population of homeless students , English learners, and students with disabilities - groups that all perform far below their peers. More than a quarter of the city's 200,000 students with disabilities last school year did not receive all of their legally mandated services (the tracking system for those services is also notoriously glitchy ). And after New York City was placed on a state "corrective action plan" that required the last mayoral administration to open new bilingual programs, the current administration has vowed to place every English learner in a bilingual program by next school year .

A former bilingual social studies teacher, Carranza has a track record of boosting instruction for English learners. As superintendent of San Francisco's school system, for instance, he worked with local universities to create a pipeline of bilingual teachers. But Carranza also acknowledged Monday that the district wrestled with a special education crisis after the Houston Chronicle's "great reporting" revealed that the state had artificially capped the percentage of students who could receive services. And while Carranza inherited that crisis, Houston has achieved only mixed success making services available to more students under his watch.

5. How will he tackle school segregation?

The new chancellor will also have to answer a growing chorus of advocates who have called for the city to better integrate its schools, which are among the most segregated in the country. It is an issue that Fariña stumbled over, once suggesting the problem could be addressed through pen pals for students.

Carranza gets fired up about equity issues and "was not afraid to go up against the machine," Jolanda Jones, an elected school board trustee in Houston, told Chalkbeat. Still, Carranza has reiterated de Blasio's argument that some inequities are beyond the school system's purview, and he will have to walk a tightrope between advocates who have demanded bolder action, and a mayor who has been reluctant to take on systemic changes.

6. Will he work smoothly with de Blasio?

Unlike his previous jobs running San Francisco and Houston's school systems, Carranza won't have to navigate school board politics or win their approval for major policy shifts or budget allocations.

7. How will he navigate charter school politics?
Christina Veiga contributed.

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School safety, funding, segregation, and more: Here are 7 issues Carranza will face in New York City

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As the superintendent of Houston's Independent School District, Richard Carranza was responsible for one of the nation's largest school systems. But when he takes the reins from retiring schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña in the coming weeks, he will oversee a system that is five times larger and arguably the country's most complex.

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Two important take aways: parents want locked doors, increased camera surveillance and a front door buzzer system, but instead get metal detectors. One kids states these machines make them feel criminalized and targeted.

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In the wake of the tragic school shootings in Parkland, Florida, and Santa Fe, Texas, over the span of less than two months, the co-president of the Community Education Council for District 24 in Queens said that parents in the district have requested that the Department of Education allowed locked doors in their schools to increase safety.

Dmytro Fedkowskyj said that the schools in his community had committed the months of March and April to discussing school safety within the district. The main things that parents requested were locked doors, increased camera surveillance and a front door buzzer system, but Fedkowskyj said that the DOE has been reluctant to implement these changes.

Metal detectors were not a huge topic of concern for the 40 schools in CEC 24, and the co-president said that requests for scanners are "dependent on occurrences" in schools.

Back in March 2018, Mayor Bill de Blasio held a meeting at the Vanderbilt YMCA to talk school safety with children in New York City public schools, including the use of metal detectors on the students. Several students, including ones from local Queens schools, said that they did not believe that metal detectors were beneficial to their safety, and instead made them feel "targeted and criminalized" as reported by Patch.

Two of the Queens high schools that were represented at the town hall were Rockaway Park High School For Environmental Sustainability and John Bowne High School in Flushing.

John Bowne High School is a Queens school that has implemented the use of metal detectors after an incident where three teenagers were charged with stabbing a fellow classmate. Days later, three other students were caught with knives while going through the metal detectors. Though the school has not implemented full-time scanners, the students do undergo "random scanning" as reported by QNS.com.

According to the nyc.gov website, the NYPD announced a safety initiative in July 2016 that required students at public middle schools and high schools to pass through metal scanning devices similar to those used to screen airline passengers. The initiative was a collaboration between the NYPD and NYCDOE as a "vital security initiative and significant deterrent to weapons and violence."

During the 2015 to 2016 school year, it was reported that there were 88 scanning sites in the more than 1,000 public schools throughout the city. Seventy-nine of these sites are "full time" while the other nine are "part time" or "random" scanning sites. Full-time scanning takes place on a continuous, daily basis during school hours and after school and on weekends whenever the school is in use. Part-time scanning occurs on a random basis throughout the week.

Other schools undergo "unannounced scanning" where the NYPD School Safety Division brings the scanning equipment down to the selected school to use for the day. According to information from the initiative, this type of scanning is usually randomized, but sometimes it is implemented in response to the conditions or circumstances surrounding the particular school.

According to an infographic from WNYC, 20 percent of Queens students went through metal detectors in the 2013 to 2014 school year. Queens is the borough with the second-to-least amount of students going through metal detectors.

The borough with the most metal detectors is the Bronx, followed by Brooklyn, Manhattan and in last place, Staten Island. It was reported that 91,114 students in New York public schools go through metal detectors in some capacity.

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Locked doors, not metal detectors, are a concern for Queens schools in the wake of school shootings - QNS.com

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In the wake of the tragic school shootings in Parkland, Florida, and Santa Fe, Texas, over the span of less than two months, the co-president of the Community Education Council for District 24 in Queens said that parents in the district have requested that the Department of Education allowed locked doors in their schools to increase safety.

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This article shows the debate of NYC schools on metal detectors. Many parents are advocates for these machines to be in place of schools.  The article states "For as many people who see them as a means to assure security inside hallways and classrooms, there are critics who argue that their mere presence creates a hostile environment and makes students feel degraded by casting them as suspect."

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Parents waiting to be united with their children after two high school students were stabbed, one of them fatally, at a Bronx school on Wednesday. Credit Credit Gregg Vigliotti for The New York Times

When word came that two students had beenstabbed inside a Bronx high school on Wednesday, the parents of several students in the elementary school housed in the same building voiced anger at a lack of metal detectors there and demanded action from Mayor Bill de Blasio.

"At the end of the day, de Blasio, you need to do something about those metal detectors in these schools that have high school kids," said Tammy Carey, a mother who hurried to the building in the West Farms neighborhood to retrieve her two elementary-school-aged children.

At a news conference two hours later, police officials agreed that such weapon-scanning devices would have intercepted the spring-loaded switchblade-style knife that the police said was used to stab the two students, one of them fatally.

On Wednesday, Mr. de Blasio vowed to put in place by Thursday morning "random screening, done with metal detectors" at the building, which is shared by the high school, the Urban Assembly School for Wildlife Conservation and an elementary school, Public School 67.

For all the outcry, and swift government response, it remains an open question whether metal detectors are the surest, or smartest, way to keep weapons out of New York City's public schools. For as many people who see them as a means to assure security inside hallways and classrooms, there are critics who argue that their mere presence creates a hostile environment and makes students feel degraded by casting them as suspect.

"To pose the question, in the wake of this horrific tragedy, as whether or not you need metal detectors is to miss the point," said Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, which has studied the issue. "The question is: What went wrong? What is going on in this school, with regard to the overall climate, with regard to bullying, with regard to conflict resolution, with regard to whether or not kids have an adult that they can go to for support in the school environment."

According to the city's Education Department, 88 buildings have metal detectors, used either full time or part time, whenever the building is in use, while eight others have scanners that are used part time. In addition, officials sometimes conduct random spot checks at certain schools, the police said. The scanners are used only in middle and high schools. Where an elementary school shares a building with a middle or high school that uses scanners, the elementary school students use a separate entrance, according to the Education Department.

The city first installed metal detectors in schools in 1988 and expanded their use starting in 1992, after a shooting at Thomas Jefferson High School in Brooklyn that left two students dead. Metal detectors were often added to schools after violent episodes, and once they have been put in place, it is rare for them to be removed.

But as crime in schools has declined to record lows in recent years, advocates have questioned the need for scanners. In 2015, a task force on school climate and discipline created by the mayor recommended developing written guidelines for using scanners and for removing them where appropriate. The Education Department and the Police Department jointly released a set of guidelines last year. The policy states that the two departments will conduct an annual review of all scanning schools to identify potential schools for changes in status.

For a school to become a scanning school, the principal must request it. A spokeswoman for the Education Department, Toya Holness, said that the principal of the Urban Assembly School for Wildlife Conservation had not made such a request. (The high school and the elementary school share an entrance.)

Gregory Floyd, the president of Teamsters Local 237, which represents school safety agents, said he had been pushing for several years to install metal detectors in every high school.

"The last two years we've had a rise in weapons being brought to the schools," he said. "This is what it leads to - a child being killed - and I am angry because the mayor did not listen."

The mayor rejected that criticism, saying, "No one should politicize a tragedy."

The number of weapons, or "dangerous instruments," found at public schools increased in the last year to 1,429 from 1,073. The mayor has said the increase reflects a city more adept at discovering weapons, and Stephen P. Davis, the chief police spokesman, pointed out that not all confiscations result from metal detectors.

In the case of P.S. 67, Chief Joanne Jaffe, who runs the Community Affairs Division, said the stepped up security presence would continue for an "undetermined amount of time" while officials decide whether to make the increased security measures permanent.

Reporting was contributed by Elizabeth A. Harris, Jeffery C. Mays and Sean Piccoli, and research by Doris Burke.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A23 of the New York edition with the headline: After Fatal Confrontation, Angry Parents Ask: Where Were the Metal Detectors?. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

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After School Stabbing, Parents Ask: Where Were Metal Detectors?

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When word came that two students had beenstabbed inside a Bronx high school on Wednesday, the parents of several students in the elementary school housed in the same building voiced anger at a lack of metal detectors there and demanded action from Mayor Bill de Blasio.

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This article has a lot of interesting views as to why IDEA school in Washington is leaning to the side of no metal detectors such as "believing that staff members who have built a rapport with students are better equipped than any machine to detect if a teenager seems off one day." or how invasive and timely they can be toward students. As well as bringing up how these machines are not infallible if someone wants to do harm that they will do harm. They describe at one school a student managed to get past metal detectors and brought in a semi automatic. So what exactly is the point of these machines?

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August 14, 2018
The staff at IDEA Public Charter High School greets each child by name every morning. They shake some students' hands, give others a quick high-five and engage in brief conversations when they can.

The morning ritual is intended to create a warm learning environment. But it's not all about cordiality: It's also part of the high school's safety plan.

Justin Rydstrom, the head of IDEA, said the school banished metal detectors five years ago, believing that staff members who have built a rapport with students are better equipped than any machine to detect if a teenager seems off one day.

"Staff relationships and staff presence really give us our best indicators in terms of what students are coming into the doors with and how they are feeling," Rydstrom said.

The February shooting that left 14 students and three staff members dead at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., intensified the debate over whether metal detectors and X-ray machines that are common in airports and courthouses belong in schools.

Following the shooting, Stoneman Douglas's school system said it would launch a pilot program with metal detectors at the school during the upcoming academic year. But earlier this month, Broward County Public Schools announced it would delay the plan because of concerns regarding staffing, privacy and logistics - a move that angered parents who wanted enhanced safety measures.

"As we continue our due diligence to implement the program - consulting with vendors and experts . . . - many issues have been raised that require the District to pause and have a more thoughtful discussion on policy and procedural aspects of this pilot," Robert Runcie, the superintendent of Broward County Public Schools, wrote in a letter to Stoneman Douglas families.

Students in Washington and other urban school districts have encountered metal detectors in schools for decades. In 1991 - when crime rates were higher in the District - the D.C. Board of Education voted to install metal detectors at the front entrances of 10 middle and high schools after a teenage girl stabbed a classmate in the cafeteria of an Anacostia school.

Every middle and high school in the District's traditional public school system now has metal detectors and X-ray machines. D.C. Public Schools declined to provide details of its security measures. But Shayne Wells, spokesman for the school system, said metal detectors and X-ray machines detect illicit items daily, leading to the confiscation of pepper spray, knives and mace.

But, like IDEA, some schools in the charter sector - which are privately run but publicly funded and educate nearly half of D.C.'s public school students - are opting for a different route. Rydstrom said the machines often inaccurately detect metal objects on students, leading to unnecessarily invasive searches. He said that students should arrive at school early, eat a healthy breakfast and go to class, and that metal detectors slowed morning arrival.

School security officials at IDEA check students' bags and use a security wand to determine if students are carrying weapons, but Rydstrom said he hopes to move toward a randomized security process.

Chris Dorn, a senior analyst at the school security consulting firm Safe Havens International, said that while more school districts are discussing metal detectors and X-ray machines, few are moving to install them.

About 3 percent of the country's public schools report having students walk through metal detectors daily, according to a study on school safety released in 2016 by the Rand Corp., a think tank.

Dorn said that parents are often behind pushes for more security but that metal detectors can be expensive and impractical - and don't necessarily increase safety.

In suburban campuses with thousands of youngsters, students often have their choice of entrances. Schools would have to pay for multiple metal detectors and X-ray machines - and hire trained staff to run them - or have students arrive through a single entrance.

Dorn said school shootings are at the root of much of the anxiety surrounding school safety. But metal detectors, he said, will not protect students from shooters intent on killing many people or harming themselves - scenarios that Dorn stressed remain rare.

And when monitoring for weapons at schools, Dorn said, the machines are not infallible.

In 2015, a student at Woodrow Wilson High School in Northwest Washington managed to enter the school, which has metal detectors and X-ray machines, with a semiautomatic handgun and flashed it in the hallway later in the day.

"Most people have a lot more anxiety, and we need to make sure not to overpromise," Dorn said. "It's a bad thing to imply safety when it's not legitimate."

Shanese Bryant, a mother of a 10th-grader at Cardozo Education Campus in Northwest Washington, said she is comforted knowing that her son's school has a metal detector, hoping its presence ensures that students are not bringing weapons into classes.

"It makes me feel more comfortable," Bryant said, "knowing that they can detect something before anything happens to the children."

At KIPP DC KEY Academy in Southeast Washington, school leaders have also opted against metal detectors. John Barnhardt, principal of the charter middle school, said people perceive metal detectors as evidence that a school must be violent or "bad."

Barnhardt, who is working on a dissertation exploring school safety, said that his students come from neighborhoods with high crime rates and that he wants them to enter campus feeling welcome.

Students at KIPP receive greetings in the morning from unarmed security guards and administrators. The school is staffed with social workers and psychologists, so if someone senses something is amiss with a student, mental-health workers can quickly intervene.

Metal detectors "can set the expectation that we think they are violent," he said. "It's tough because we can never completely know a student, but I do think that KIPP DC has made a significant investment in the social-emotional aspect."

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Do metal detectors and X-ray machines belong in schools?

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August 14, 2018 The staff at IDEA Public Charter High School greets each child by name every morning. They shake some students' hands, give others a quick high-five and engage in brief conversations when they can. The morning ritual is intended to create a warm learning environment.

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Mayor argues against kids defending “more counseling less metal detectors” as well as finding out many kids do not feeling safe enough to communicate with school safety. the mayor approaches these statements by saying maybe we need to work on our relationship with school safety then maybe we would feel safer with the idea of implementing these machines. however, will his approach of stronger relationships amongst students and school safety really stick? It's hard to imagine that working out well, if we had more counselors better equipped teachers wouldn't that create a safer and better school environment.

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MIDTOWN MANHATTAN, NY - Mayor Bill de Blasio invited dozens of New York City high schoolers to talk about how they want to make change after last month's deadly school shooting in Florida. What they wanted to change, it turned out, was the city's imposition of metal detectors on their schools.

Several of the roughly two dozen students who spoke at Thursday's town hall event said the screenings make them feel targeted and criminalized. And many expressed a lack of trust in the NYPD's 5,000 school safety agents despite de Blasio's efforts to strengthen relationships with police around the city.

Only about 90 of the city's more than 1,000 schools have metal detectors in place permanently, de Blasio said. But students argued they're placed far more often in schools where the student body comprises mostly people of color, despite city officials' assertions to the contrary.

"Why are you ... prioritizing police and metal detectors instead of ensuring we have enough social, emotional and mental health support in our schools?" Andrea Colon, a senior at Rockaway Park High School, said before the crowd of more than 100.

The city's high schools lack enough guidance counselors to handle students' concerns, students said, calling on the mayor to hire more of them. Several also said the city should expand its portfolio of other resources to help students socially and emotionally.

De Blasio organized Thursday's event at the Vanderbilt YMCA as a response to the Feb. 14 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where Nikolas Cruz killed shot and killed 17 people. The incident has prompted students in New York and across the country to organize protests and walkouts, including one set for March 14, calling for stronger gun control laws.

He praised the students - several of them involved in organizing those walkouts or in student government - and encouraged them to continue their activism. They either took his advice or didn't need it - several participated in an impromptu protest outside the building after the event, videos from the scene show, chanting, "Let the youth speak!" and "Hey hey, ho ho, metal detectors have got to go!"

At several points, the mayor and first lady Chirlane McCray took straw polls of the students, asking whether knew who to go to if they were having mental health problems and whether they had good relationships with school safety agents. Only a handful raised their hands to answer yes to either question.

Some students felt they could talk to their school safety agents, who are unarmed, but said they didn't have close enough relationships with them. Others said the agents don't help them feel safe.

Sagar Sharma from John Bowne High School in Queens said students there now go through metal detectors daily, but had temporary screenings for a week after a stabbing last year. Safety agents manning them at the time greeted students by saying, "Good morning, John Bowne stabbers," he said; they were later replaced.

"As a person of color I feel like the school safety officers, they're there more to watch me instead of to help me," said Olukemi, a black student at Scholars Academy in Rockaway Park, Queens.

De Blasio acknowledged the gap in trust between students and school safety agents and committed to fixing the problem. At the event, he told Chief Nilda Hofmann, the head of the NYPD's Community Affairs Bureau, to make sure every school organizes a meeting between its agents and students.

"We've got some work to do," he said. "It's not a shocker. We are trying to change the approach."

But de Blasio and his officials defended the city's policy on metal detectors. The mayor got testy at times with students for continuing to bring up the issue after McCray asked them what mental health services they wanted to see in schools.

The city only deploys the scanners where they're needed, and there are clear criteria for both installing and removing them, the mayor and his officials said.

De Blasio last month said every middle and high school will have random screenings in the coming months after the Parkland shooting. But when the city wants to put them in a school permanently, it does so in consultation with the NYPD and school officials, de Blasio has said.

"I think what we're hearing hear today is that we've got to do better at the trust and communication part, and I would argue the better we do at that, the more chance we have to re-evaluate, in any given school, the use of scanners," de Blasio said. "Until we are sure, we're obviously not going to take away something we think is deterrent."
Watch the full town hall meeting below. (Lead image: Sagar Sharma, a student at John Bowne High School in Queens, speaks at a town hall on gun violence with Mayor Bill de Blasio on Thursday. Image via NYC Mayor's Office/YouTube)

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Metal Detectors Don't Make NYC Schools Safer, Students Tell Mayor

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MIDTOWN MANHATTAN, NY - Mayor Bill de Blasio invited dozens of New York City high schoolers to talk about how they want to make change after last month's deadly school shooting in Florida. What they wanted to change, it turned out, was the city's imposition of metal detectors on their schools.

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"after school stabbing.." article continued.

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"after school stabbing.." article continued.

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However, an important question was raised in this article about the stabbing that occurred. "What went wrong? What is going on in this school, with regard to the overall climate, with regard to bullying, with regard to conflict resolution, with regard to whether or not kids have an adult that they can go to for support in the school environment.” This question should be raised throughout all schools during this debate.

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Ironically majority of parents are in favor of metal detectors being implemented into all schools due to shootings at or around their school or just pressing for more safety. While the children express how they make them feel, whether that be a feeling of being invaded, criminalized, degraded and  a suspect. hich all connects to the school to prison pipeline.

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One solution instead of metal detectors would be more counselors, safer and comfortable school environment, teachers stepping in and getting to know students that way if someone was a having a of day they would be a head of the game. because realistically if someone like a shooter wanted to hurt someone they would find a way. so instead of trying to protect students from invaders or shooters lets try prevent students from becoming them by giving them the resources and care they need.

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Although these machines can be protective and preventive of harsh situations they could also cause trauma for students and create hostile and uncomfortable environments. Sadly as many school shootings, stabbings and other violent crimes that happen it somehow always seems that urban, public, and schools in the most harsh neighborhoods have the biggest push to get metal detectors implemented. this creates that feeling of being a criminal or target already and that is the last thing we need.