Ex-Officio Student School Board members Isaac Rosenfeld and Hayden Langford share their thoughts on the new weapons detection system at Jamestown High School (February 10, 2026)
Jamestown School Board members received an update on how the use of weapons detection machines are going at the high school.
The machines were put into place Monday, February 2 after a student was found to have a loaded gun in his backpack in the school on January 30.
Ex-Officio Student Board Member Hayden Langford said he heard that a lot of students were scared and uneasy after the incident. He said things are running more smoothly now that the detectors have been in place a week, “Everybody’s trying to figure it out, teachers that are ushering (students in) and students themselves. There was a lot of complaints about cell phones. Specifically, I know that there were over 100 that were confiscated, which honestly is something and maybe not, maybe inadvertent with this new system we have, but has helped enforce that as well.”
Langford said the issue from earlier in the school year with students being tardy due to having to be checked for cell phones has come back again with the weapons detectors. He said it’s taking longer to get into the school, which was hard when there were extremely cold temperatures. Langford said a better system to check bags needs to be developed.
The other Ex Officio Student Board Member, Isaac Rosenfeld, said the detectors “add a great layer of security at the school,” “I think they also are another layer to prevent use of phones too, which is also a side effect, which is can be useful. And, yeah, they could also, they also have been hindering lines a little bit, but I think it’s a decent compromise for the effects.”
Superintendent Dr. Kevin Whitaker echoed Rosenfeld’s comment about the detection units being another layer of security, “We’ve got people’s eyes. We have student eyes and staff eyes. We’ve got our red shirts. We have our SROs. We’ve got video. We have components of our video that we are experimenting with in other ways that I can’t go into in public. We’ve got bag searches, we have wands. We have our weapons detection system in place, and of course, we have our proactive and prevention model too, with our social workers, the increasing number of social workers and psychologists and other emotional support folks over the years.”
Whitaker thanked parents, students, staff, and administrators for the success of the new system. He said that changes will continue and that feedback is welcome.
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