PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — A series of ideas will be presented to the Portland School Board Tuesday night months after a wave of shootings took place outside Portland public high schools.
The 30-page report includes a number of recommendations. Among them, that police officers are “available and visible near schools to deter criminal activity,” and the possibility of metal detectors at entry points during major high school events.
The task force said the walkthrough and hand-held metal detectors are out of date and recommend new technologies with image-aided alarms and digital imaging that shows where a potential threat is located on the person.
Watch 6pm: PPS Safety and Security Task Force public meeting
Campus safety associates for the Portland School District told the Safety and Security Task Force that “weapons are everywhere. We need solutions that can detect them.”
Among other recommendations are an emergency alert system (with an estimated cost of $850,000 per year) and a school-wide badge program that would require all middle- and high school students to wear ID badges at all times.
Superintendent Guadalupe Guerrero launched this task force in response to these incidents of gun violence that injured 5 students from Jefferson, Franklin and Cleveland high schools.
But it’s still unclear when it convened and who served on it. Officials with PPS did not respond to questions about this issue from KOIN 6 News.
KOIN 6 News will have more information as it develops.