Random weapon searches occurred 'once in a blue moon,' Gardena student says

Although designated staff members at Gardena High School are authorized to search students with hand-held metal detectors, one student said the random inspections only occurred "once in a blue moon."

"They would almost never use it," said student Jessica Santiago, 15. "Only if you looked suspicious or someone heard something and told a teacher."

L.A. Unified School Board member Richard Vladovic said he visited the campus six months ago and saw school officials searching some students.

"It seems like they were following policy," said Vladovic, who was a district administrator overseeing the area including Gardena in 2002, when two students there were shot on campus during a robbery.

District officials have allowed searches since 1993, largely leaving principles to decide the details of when and where to check students. A district policy memo recommends that searches take place on a daily basis at different times so they don't become predictable.

Vladovic said school district administrators would check logs on campus to make sure protocol has been  followed.

Securing a large campus like Gardena is especially difficult, Vladovic said. The school has about 3,100 students and takes up nearly two acres.

He said district officials would review their policies but "we can't control every entrance and exit at every school all the time," Vladovic said. "It would be physically impossible to do."

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Comments

[Teacher]

You wanted budget cuts you got em!

So why is the LAUSD Board wondering why there were few searches.

This is what happens when the school is short-staffed.

My thoughts are with the victims.

[Lou]

This is what happens when you continually coddle thugs and gangsters who have no reason to be in school except for the fact that politicians have an unrealistic 100% graduation rate goal. I went to school in the LAUSD and all the thugs run the school and make it a bad environment to learn.

Remeber that scene in Lean on Me where the principal kicks out all the thugs on the first day of school, we should do that.

[jau]

Their going to school to learn why should they be subjected to being searched like they were in jail or prison. What a waste of money to make schools like airports.

[Greg]

weapon searches at school ?
I would expect that a prisons, but school ?
what kind of hell hole is Los angeles ?

[A graduate of the TUSD.]

'Principles', as used in the fifth paragraph, should be spelled 'principals'.