(Bloomberg) -- A recent hoax threatening violence that sent a South Carolina high school into a panic was a false alarm, but it left the Lancaster County School District grappling with real questions about safety.
School officials may earmark at least $2 million for AI-powered systems to scan for weapons at the district’s 26 buildings, as part of a $588 million bond measure up for voter approval next week. The district’s safety director had already been eyeing security upgrades, but the fear sparked by the threat has bolstered the case for investing.
The move reflects a national trend, as school districts across the country invest billions in fortification, from AI-driven detection systems to bulletproof doors, driven by the specter of gun violence. The US school-security industry, valued at $3 billion according to a IHS Markit estimate, has grown rapidly since the pandemic, largely driven by public pressure and new funding streams from bond measures and federal aid.
But even as officials race to fortify their campuses, critics argue that some technologies may offer little more than false comfort.
“Districts face enormous pressure from parents and media attention, along with specific incidents, to do something,” said Ken Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services, a Cleveland-based consulting firm. “Those dynamics have become more intense than any time that I’ve been in the school safety field.”
Evolv Technologies Holdings Inc., the company behind the equipment that Lancaster is considering, has seen demand skyrocket in the education sector. Its systems, which can screen 2,000 students per hour, are already in use at high-traffic venues like Boston’s TD Garden and New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.
“Our biggest thing is to try to keep everything out of our school,” said Lonnie Plyler, Lancaster’s director of safety.
But not everyone is convinced that more technology will make schools safer. Samantha Viano, an associate professor at George Mason University who is studying the impact of these technologies with a grant from the Department of Justice, says that while AI systems may provide peace of mind, their effectiveness in preventing violence remains largely unproven.
“There’s a lot of money going into security equipment but there’s not much research proving it actually works,” said Viano.
Evolv has faced its own share of controversy. The company has been investigated by the Federal Trade Commission over whether its AI equipment operates as it claims, and the company is currently embroiled in a class-action lawsuit alleging it overstated the capabilities of its products.
“We stand behind our technology and are proud to partner with hundreds of security professionals and venues around the world as part of their safety plan, including over 1,100 school buildings,” said Alexandra Ozerkis, a company spokesperson.
For firms like Cobalt Service Partners, a private equity-backed buyer of access and security firms, school safety represents the fastest growing part of its platform. Co-Chief Executive Officer Tyler Hoffman says he continues to scout new companies to acquire. According to data from PitchBook, private equity has clinched more than 30 deals in the sector since the pandemic, while venture capital firms have invested over $420 million in 37 transactions since 2020.
“We realized that within education specifically, the need and demand for security technology is especially high and growing at an especially high rate,” said Hoffman. “Given the prevalence of gun violence, it’s top of mind for everyone.”
The surge in spending has its roots in high-profile school shootings that have shaped the national conversation on campus safety.
Incidents like the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting and the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre led to a wave of grants and legislation. Several states including Florida and New York have since approved “Alyssa’s Law” — named after Alyssa Alhadeff who was killed in the Parkland shooting — which mandates panic alert systems in schools. Today, electronic notification systems, which can automatically alert police to emergencies, are installed in over two-thirds of US schools.
Across the country, security cameras were present in about one in five schools in the early 2000s. Now, they’re nearly universal, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
(Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun control advocacy organization, is backed by Michael Bloomberg, founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent company Bloomberg LP.)
Hoaxes like last month’s in South Carolina — where screenshots of text messages threatening to kill teachers circulated on social media, sparking a flood of frantic calls and emails from parents — are also fueling the lockdown culture.
Yet, not all schools are rushing to embrace a fortress mentality. California’s Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, for example, has told parents it’s gravitating toward more open campuses while focusing on wellness services, modernizing buildings and increasing supervision.
Other places have gone to extremes, implementing a range of hardening measures including bullet-resistant desks. West Elementary School in Cullman, Alabama is piloting collapsible bulletproof shelters, made by KT Security Solutions. In March, New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced $21 million in plans for high-tech school security.
Still, experts like Jagdish Khubchandani, a professor at New Mexico State University who studies school firearm violence, are cautioning against relying too heavily on these high-priced technologies. “What is the foundation of this industry? No one knows,” Khubchandani said. “A lot of money is going into these hardening processes, but there’s little evidence they work.”
Khubchandani published an academic paper in 2019 that found “none of the currently employed school firearm violence prevention methods have empirical evidence to show that they actually diminish firearm violence in schools.” A separate 2022 study by a team of researchers from Florida State University, the University of Cincinnati and the University of Nebraska Omaha reached a similar conclusion.
For many school administrators, however, the priority is peace of mind for parents and students.
Adam Neely, the principal of Prescott High School in Arizona, said that his school’s investment in an AI-based security system has already shown its value in non-violent situations. Since integrating a Volt AI system into the school’s existing cameras in 2022, it’s flagged various incidents. In one case, it detected a student suffering from an asthma attack in a hallway; in another, it alerted staff to students stealing from the theater department.
“We often have felt that we’re constantly in reactive mode,” Neely said. “I can imagine a lot of schools nowadays looking for something like this.”
Trump, the security consultant, agreed, but warned against schools rushing to invest in products they don’t fully understand.
“Parents are upset, there is heightened attention, and superintendents and boards respond by putting up physical fixes to point to,” he said. “Often times this produces security theater, just the perception of greater security.”
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