When you go out to enjoy a high school football game this fall under the Friday night lights of Monongalia County, don’t be surprised if you have to huddle at the gate for some safety protocol first.
Actually, Eddie Campbell Jr., the superintendent of schools for the county district, wants you to be surprised.
Mon Schools, he said, will once again continue its practice of randomly placing weapons detectors at the stadiums of the county’s three high schools this season.
“We might do two or three games in a row,” the superintendent continued, “or it might be every few games.”
Venues, he said, are never announced in advance.
That is, you show up and the detector is there. Or it’s not.
“It’s a way of keeping people on their toes,” said Campbell, who began his career in education as a teacher and athletic coach.
Regretfully, he said, it’s also the way of the world.
Gun violence continues be a specter in the places where people gather – especially America’s schools.
Fears over the latter prompted the local district to purchase high-tech screeners in January 2022 from the company CEIA USA.
The devices, Campbell said, are calibrated in such a way to discern the metal density of a pistol or a knife.
“Anything that can cause mayhem,” the superintendent said.
Concrete discussions on the procuring of such preventive safety measures kicked up here three years ago, just weeks after a student at a high school in suburban Detroit fatally gunned down four classmates.
Numbers of Mon County parents, in fact, rallied following that incident, pushing for metal detectors to be installed here.
The devices arrived in Morgantown a month before Uvalde.
A total of 19 students and two teachers died in shootings May 30, 2022, at an elementary school in the Texas town.
Now, the devices are in place at Morgantown High, University High and Clay-Battelle, which will welcome students back on Tuesday for the first day of classes.
Concert promotors, the NFL and Major League Baseball all use detectors from the same company, the superintendent said.
He gives good grades to the ease of use and portability of the devices.
As said, they’re deployed at various sporting events in the district throughout the year.
People taking in commencement at MHS and UHS last spring also passed through the detectors on their way to their seats for the ceremonies.
“It’s just one more layer,” Campbell said. “It’s about keeping our kids and our community safe.”
