Metal detectors still in use in Vermilion Parish

In October, the Vermilion Parish School Board ramped security by placing metal detectors in all schools. Five months later, the metal detectors are still being used today.
At 99 percent of the schools, the metal detectors are randomly used three days a week. In other words, the school administration decides when students have to walk through the metal detectors.
Some schools can use metal detectors before entering or walking out of the classroom.
In February, one school began using a metal detector every day. Abbeville High School hired two men to man the metal detector at the entrance of Abbeville High School.
Everyone who walks into Abbeville High, has to walk through it. Before February, the school did random walk-throughs. Now, it is every day.
The school board hired Thomas Vallo and Andrew Dozier to man the metal detector. They randomly select when they want students to walk through the detectors. So if a student is late for school, the odds are that student will walk through the metal detector.
“All schools have metal detectors,” said assistant superintendent Marc Turner. “Every school expects to use them.”
Turner said the school uses them in the morning, afternoon, and between classes.
“However they want,” he said.
Superintendent Tommy Byler said Abbeville High uses the detector every day because there is no resource police officer on campus. An officer from the Abbeville Police Department once sat in front of the school by the entrance, but because of a man shortage by the city police department, the police department could not spare an officer.
The metal detector helps find illegal vaping products being brought on campus.
While the metal detector does not stop everything, it helps deter it from entering the campus, Byler added.
“We are not defeating the problem, but we are doing our part to curb the problem,” Byler said.