Muncie schools to institute random searches and locker checks

The school board at Muncie Community Schools has voted unanimously to begin random security checks and locker searches of students at some of the district’s schools.  IPR’s Stephanie Wiechmann reports.

Muncie Community Schools says the random security checks will happen at Muncie Central High School and Northside and Southside Middle Schools.  School administrators will decide when the searches will happen and how many times a semester they’ll be conducted.

Robert Scaife with Legacy Life Security Solutions, which provides security to the school buildings, says security officers, administrators, and staff will help with the searches.  Hand-held metal detector wands will be used and backpacks and bags will be opened and visually searched.

“We’ll make sure that we have females at entrances.  Because if we have to pat-search a student, whether it’s a male or female, we want to make sure that we have the right person checking.  Females checking females, males checking males.”

K-9 officers from the Delaware County Sheriff’s Department will also sniff out any illegal drugs or weapons in random locker checks throughout the year.

MCS already has the detector wands through a state school safety grant program, funded by the legislature in 2018 and 2019.

And board president Jim Williams says this is what the program intended.

“It’s good policy.  It’s consistent with what the governor desired when the wands were provided – then COVID intervened.”

Scaife and the board both say this is a proactive move, based on incidents across the country – the most recent involving a Virginia six-year-old shooting their teacher with a gun brought to school.