KUOW72%
Should Seattle schools have weapons detectors, fences? Superintendent considers safety upgrades 33%
By Noel Gasca0%
6/16/2026, 10:35:48 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 23 faulty reasoning types, including Availability Heuristic, Anecdotal, and Appeal to Emotion, with Ambiguity (Equivocation) as the most egregious example at 18.9% saturation with 107 hits. Analysis detected 1,011 faulty-reasoning hits from 565 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 41.6% and a BS Rank of 33% (14,243 of 21,175 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 67.30% of the article peer group.
The last day of classes for Seattle Public Schools is tomorrow.
But the head of the district is already discussing campus safety changes students may see in the fall.
At a media roundtable on Tuesday, Superintendent Ben Shuldiner said new fencing and security cameras could be put up at schools over the summer.
"Some schools have been asking for fencing for years," Shuldiner said.
"I just think that this district hasn't prioritized safety, and so that's something that I'm really thinking about."
Ingraham High School stands out as a particular safety concern.
Shuldiner said he visited the school on Monday, and the principal emphasized the need for fences.
Ingraham has an open campus structure with multiple buildings.
Shuldiner said the principal told him that random people walk into the school's buildings "at least five times a year."
For the upcoming school year, the district will focus on enhancing perimeter support with fencing and cameras.
Shuldiner said many schools already have cameras, but they're not always in the right place.
Could weapon detectors be coming to Seattle schools?
School safety has shadowed Shuldiner's first months as superintendent of Seattle schools, even before he officially started the job.
In February, two teenage boys were killed at a bus stop near South Shore PreK-8 and Rainier Beach High School, just days before Shuldiner took over.
During Shuldiner's tenure as the superintendent of the Lansing School District in Central Michigan, he said bringing schools up to meet high security standards was a priority.
As Shuldiner told KUOW back in February, that meant making sure every school had a single point of entry, as well as installing security cameras and fences.
On Tuesday, he said he's also open to discussing another security tool with students and families: weapon detectors.
"I want schools to feel like where rich people live, in cathedrals, T-Mobile Park," Shuldiner said.
"When you go through T-Mobile, you've got to go through weapons detectors.
There's multiple points of entry, but somebody's always there, and it's a way to actually make folks feel safe."
In Seattle, Shuldiner said, there's an idea that fences, cameras, or weapon detectors make schools feel like "prisons."
He believes it's "the exact opposite."
Communities at Ingraham High School and Garfield have been rocked by gun violence in recent years.
A metal detector or weapon detection system may have been able to prevent the 2022 shooting death of 17-year-old Ingraham student Ebenezer Haile inside Ingraham High School.
But it's unclear whether the technology would have been able to prevent the killing of 17-year-old Amarr Murphy Paine in 2025, who was shot just outside Garfield High School.
Shuldiner said he won't "force" the detection system on schools or mandate their installation — he'll wait for schools to approach him with an ask.
For now, the detectors are part of "ongoing conversations," but Shuldiner said families and students have already reached out to advocate for them.
"If it's an outside entity, that's one thing," Shuldiner said.
"But if it's our own people, if it's an assistant principal, if it's a principal, if our own safety and security folks — those are people that kids really know and trust and work with."
He also pointed to positive feedback on the use of weapon detectors at graduation ceremonies for Ingraham High School and Nathan Hale last week.
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