Walk-through weapons detectors arrive at Duval County elementary schools under $2 million plan

Students at Duval County's elementary schools are beginning to walk through weapons detectors on their way to class, as Duval County Public Schools starts a rollout that will eventually put the walk-through screening systems at every one of its roughly 90 elementary campuses. The first three elementary schools are set to receive the equipment later this month, and the district aims to have the devices at 30 elementary schools by the end of the 2026-27 school year, News4JAX reported this week.

The expansion, paid for through a $2 million contract the Duval County School Board approved in June, brings the Jacksonville district's youngest students under the same screening that already greets middle and high schoolers. District leaders say the move follows a year in which school police found real firearms in the backpacks of elementary students on three separate occasions.

A three-year rollout

The district plans to equip about 30 elementary schools each year until all of them have the technology, a schedule that would complete the rollout in roughly three years. Jacksonville Today reported on Oct. 22 that the systems will be installed across all of the district's elementary schools over that period, at a cost of about $20,000 per school.

Regional superintendents chose which schools would go first, according to Action News Jax. The district has not publicly released a full list of the first campuses. It has said principals will notify families before the system is installed at their child's school, and that parents and staff will be told about any changes to arrival routines ahead of time.

On Oct. 21, the district demonstrated the equipment for reporters at John E. Ford K-8 School near downtown Jacksonville, which has used the detectors for months.

What the equipment is and how screening works

The units are CEIA OPENGATE portable walk-through systems, the same model the district installed at all of its middle schools during the 2025-26 school year. The district bought them through a contract with Communication Technologies Inc., according to News4JAX. Each elementary school will get up to three systems, placed at the points where students and visitors enter, and the units can be set up indoors or outdoors.

The systems are designed to flag knives, firearms and explosives while letting people keep their belongings with them, which the district says helps keep lines moving. School police officers, security personnel and trained school staff will run the equipment. Students walk through one at a time. If the system sounds an alert, the student is taken to a nearby area for a brief secondary screening, which may include a handheld wand check or a bag search.

Everyday items can set off the detectors. At the Ford demonstration, students wore their backpacks on the front so they could quickly pull out flagged items, and the district promoted the acronym BLUE as a reminder of what to remove: binders, laptops, umbrellas and eyeglass cases. Metal lunchboxes can also trigger an alert, the district has said.

All students and visitors entering an elementary school will be required to pass through the system, according to the district. If a student refuses screening, a parent or guardian will be contacted and the student may be sent home. If a weapon or illegal substance is found, law enforcement will take the item, and the student may face police action as well as discipline under the district's Student Code of Conduct. Jacksonville Today reported that school police will be stationed nearby in case a weapon is found.

Why the district is expanding to elementary schools

Duval County School Police Chief Jackson Short has tied the expansion to incidents in the 2025-26 school year. Speaking to Action News Jax in June, Short said that on all three occasions, officers found legitimate firearms in the backpacks of elementary school students. He said the district wanted to get ahead of the problem after what he described as "a couple of situations last year."

"Students and staff at our elementary schools deserve the same level of safety found at our secondary schools," Short said in June, when the board approved the contract. At the October demonstration, he described the detectors as one piece of a broader security plan rather than a cure-all. "This technology is just part of our multilayered approach to safety and security," he said, according to News4JAX.

Short also framed the equipment as a deterrent. "What we're looking for is for the weapon to never even come on campus," he told Action News Jax, adding that district police credited the systems with catching a firearm at a Duval high school last year.

How Duval's screening grew from high schools down

The elementary rollout is the latest step in a screening program that started with the district's oldest students. In August 2022, the School Board voted 7-0 to approve an $8.7 million plan to put Evolv Technology's Express weapons detection system in all 19 Duval high schools, paid with capital funds over several years, Action News Jax reported at the time. Middle and elementary schools continued to rely on handheld wands then.

The district then extended walk-through screening to all of its middle schools in 2025-26 using the CEIA OPENGATE model, before the board approved the $2 million elementary contract on June 2, 2026. That approval set the stage for the current fall rollout.

The expansion comes as Florida districts continue to operate under the state's post-Parkland school safety framework, which requires an armed safe-school officer or guardian at every public school. Duval School Board Chair Charlotte Joyce referenced the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting during a board discussion this week. "Seventeen children and adults died in three minutes," she said, according to News4JAX, as members debated a separate proposal on whether certain qualifying adults could keep firearms in their vehicles on school property.

Students and parents weigh in

Students who went through the screening at John E. Ford said it was less intimidating than they expected. Fifth-grader Madeline Herbin told Action News Jax the process "was actually pretty quick and easy, and it made me feel safer." Another student, Mackenzie Peterson, said it had been nerve-wracking at first because she thought only certain students were being screened.

Parents are divided. One parent of a 7-year-old told News4JAX she opposes the technology, citing her concern about the climate around school shootings, while the parent of a 3-year-old said the detectors would ease parents' worries. When the plan was announced in June, a parent of elementary and middle school students told News4JAX that she supports school safety but believes the money could be spent on academic help, calling the need for detectors a "sad reality."

Gun safety advocates have also argued that the machines do not address the underlying problem. Jean Francis of Moms Demand Action Jacksonville told Action News Jax in June that tragedies could be prevented through stronger firearm laws and education. "This is not the society we have to live in," she said.

What families should expect

District officials have warned that the first weeks at each school may bring minor delays at arrival as students and staff adjust to the routine, and Short has asked families for patience during the rollout.

Visitors, including parents attending events or volunteering, will also go through the detectors at schools that have them, since the district requires everyone entering an equipped elementary campus to be screened.

What's next

After the first three campuses come online later this month, the district plans to keep adding schools through the rest of the 2026-27 school year until it reaches about 30, then repeat that pace in each of the next two years until all of its elementary schools are equipped. Families at schools further down the list should hear from their principals before installation begins. Separately, the School Board is still weighing the proposal on firearms in vehicles on school property, a debate that has drawn both supporters who cite the right to self-protection and critics who worry about thefts and confrontations.