Stuart Vaughn 

Staff Writer 

It’s a calm Tuesday morning, the sun is shining, and students are ready to start their morning, hoping for a stress-free day. Suddenly, everyone’s mood is killed. A long line of angry high school students wraps around the auditorium as they wait to go through the metal detectors. 

   “I think it’s stupid,” junior Paul Yates said. “Barely anybody brings vapes to school. I don’t know why everybody has to go through that because of the one percent.”

   Most students are angry about the metal detectors, thinking it’s a waste of time and pointless to have to wait in such a long line.

   “When I first came to school there was a long line for the metal detectors and it made me miss the first 20 minutes of class, which sucked,” junior Hayes Smith said. “But I somewhat see the benefit of them keeping things that shouldn’t be at school out, like guns”

    Despite all the effort and time our school put into the metal detectors, students are finding a way around the system with ease. 

   “While I was standing in the line, I saw a group of kids throw a few vapes into the trash can in front of the school,” sophomore Pio Motariol said. “They are using a big part of our class time on something that doesn’t even work.”

   Contrary to RJR students’ beliefs about the metal detector checks, teachers and administrators are in favor of the searches. Just not the way they were going about and the amount of class time being wasted.

   “I think that the metal detectors work, but we definitely need to improve the system by making it faster and more efficient,” Assistant Principal Paul Pressly said. “I know there was a pretty significant line going down the tunnel, sacrificing some class time. That’s just where we need to work to be more efficient.”

   The long lines and urgent checks not only take chunks of class time out of students’ school days, but the urgency and the idea of someone bringing a firearm to school may cause panic among RJR students. 

   “I don’t ever want us to feel like we are in a police state,” Principal Freeman said. “but there are things that can necessitate the metal detectors like things happening out in the community or we’re hearing things as an administrator, so we just want to make sure that everybody is safe.”

  Even with ways to work around the system and other negatives the metal detectors may still to some extent prevent some bad things from happening which may be a big difference. 

   “I understand the desire to make the school safer and I hope that it works,” Behavior Assistant Shannon Kawalec said. “I think that it deters certain people from doing certain things and I don’t think that it could hurt to keep them around. 

   With long lines and sacrificed class time, every RJR student hopes for an easier morning the next time the metal detectors appear in front of the building.