Locker Searches/Personal Searches

I was watching a movie one time, and one set of the movie took place at a high school. As the students entered school, all students, teachers, and visitors had to walk through a metal detector, and get their belongings searched before they could enter. To keep our school out of risk from harm or disasters, there definitely could and should be more actions being taken. I think metal detectors, people set aside to check belongings, and people who are to just watch surveillance videos or walk to halls at all time, are just some of the basic things a school can do to keep the school safe, no matter the price.
There are many advantages concerning saftey issues, by putting metal detectors in schools. I think that there would need to be a detector at every entrance of the school with someone standing there to guard it. The point of the the detectors is to prevent students or other visitors from bringing guns, knifes, or any other outside weapon. "In 1992, the Green Pastures Center in Oklahoma discovered that the number of students bringing weapons to schools declined by more than half in just one year and that violent crimes and criminal trespass dropped by 35 percent." (http://students.ed.uiuc.edu/jkelsey/surveillance/detectors.htm)
Although metal detectors would help tremendously, it wouldn't completly stop the problem. Another problem in schools are drugs, and metal detectors couldn't find those, so thats why I think that there should be people that are allowed to check lockers and personal belongings. It really shouldn't matter to students if somebody checked there belongings if they don't have anything to hide, but it's the students that really have a problem with people checking their stuff that need to have there stuff checked. "Even with all of the questions that surround the rights of students and their privacy when locker searches are conducted, there is still support for them to occur. In a poll of 600 people that was conducted in May of 1999 by Talmey-Drake Research & Strategy of Boulder for the Denver Rocky Mountain News and News4. Periodic locker searches were OK with 69 percent and 47 percent said they favor random searches of students." (Weber, 1999) "By conducting locker searches, the administrators lay the ground work for safer schools. It deters students from bringing contraband and weapons to school." (http://students.ed.uiuc.edu/jkelsey/surveillance/locker.htm)
Surveillance camera's would also be a big help in lowering the violence and drug rates in high schools. Just about all schools have surveillance videos, but I'm not sure if they are using them to there full potential. I think that schools should have people that their job is to watch the surveillance videos or walk the halls at all time, so hopefully they could catch bullying or drug deals in the act, rather than after.
""One of the advantages that proponents of video surveillance claim is peace of mind for students and staff (Green, 1999, Why video cameras?).
Another advantage that can be measured is a reduction in property damages such as vandalism and theft (Ballenas...) ("The witness"...).
Finally, schools using video surveillance claim better behavior because of monitoring. ''Sometimes just the idea in kids' minds that there's a camera recording them keeps them from causing trouble or being difficult" (Gross, as quoted in Baxter, 2003, ¶ 14). "" http://students.ed.uiuc.edu/jkelsey/surveillance/cameras.htm)
Safety is definatly a top priority in all schools, but to me, I just don't think that schools are at the top of their game when it comes to being extremly safe. Metal detectors, people checking personal belongings, and surveillance videos are just three of the many ways that schools can get even better at keeping their school safe.