As Seattle schools test weapons detectors, Gee and Ursula want officers back on campus

Seattle Public Schools will test walk-through weapons detectors at Nathan Hale and Rainier Beach High Schools after the school board voted unanimously on Oct. 7 to support the pilot. Both schools asked for the equipment.

“I hope it is addressed and talked about how we can get school resource officers back into schools, because that decision to remove them was just not a good one,” KIRO host Gee Scott said on “The Gee and Ursula Show.”

The Seattle Public Schools (SPS) Board imposed a moratorium on police officers in schools in June 2020, in the wake of the George Floyd protests, ending a program that had placed armed Seattle police officers at several campuses. Last October, the board voted 5-2 against a pilot that would have returned an officer to Garfield High School.

“Barring having officers on campus, I am totally in favor of having these detectors, and I am glad that they’re doing a pilot program,” KIRO host Ursula Reutin said.

The district plans to use freestanding, pillar-style OPENGATE detectors from CEIA USA, which cost about $23,427 each. SPS already uses the same systems at graduations and sporting events. During the pilot, staff will track how long students take to enter the buildings and collect feedback from students and staff. Nathan Hale High School hopes to start in December, and Superintendent Ben Shuldiner said the district won’t bring detectors to other schools unless they ask.

“Everybody said, ‘Hey, if there’s something that you can do to make us safer, let’s at least try,'” Shuldiner said in a clip played on the show.

Both schools have recent reasons to ask. Two teenagers were shot and killed at a bus stop near Rainier Beach High School in January, a student was killed at Ingraham High School in 2022, and gunfire outside Garfield High School led to a death in 2024.

“I’m of the belief that you’re not going to be able to remove the number of guns. We have more guns already than people in this country,” Ursula said. “So what can you do to make people safer, knowing that fact?”

Students from both schools spoke in favor of the pilot at September’s board meeting, and the board’s student representatives supported it. Rainier Beach students also discussed other safety proposals with the board, and the city has committed $350,000 to keep Community Passageways’ safe-passage program running near the school through June 2027.

“Let’s talk to the kids and find out what they’re about,” Gee said. “I have not been to school and been in a classroom in 30-something years. Imagine me sitting here making decisions for schools, and I am not actually listening to the kids, but I’m talking to the teachers, or I’m talking to the administrators, and they haven’t been a student in 37 years. That’s my point.”

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

Listen to Gee and Ursula on “The Gee and Ursula Show” weekday mornings from 9 am to 12 pm on KIRO Newsradio.