Keep schools safer with less cost.

Dear Mr. / Madam President, I am a senior high school student at minarets high school located near Yosemite National Park and will be graduating this year and leaving high school behind. With gun and crime increasing on school campuses, many districts are turning to metal detection program. The average cost of a portable metal detector is approx 4,000 to $5,000. That cost doesn’t compare to the cost higher the people to operate it. In a schools with about 2,000 students, the program requires 9 security officers for a 2 hours each morning. Two manage the detector, Two to search the baggage x-ray machines, two officers (a male and a female) operate the hand scanners on students who fail, and two more to keep the students moving through the system, even then, to get student to class on time, the school schedule needs to be rearranged. This cost can be very high. As a student and member of Minarets High School FFA program, I became aware of a FFA program in Lake Elsinore where students raise guide dogs for the blind and wondered if it was possible to raise Gun Dogs for school security. In the same way, dogs are trained to detect drugs and bombs, they are also trained to detect guns and gunpowder. With FFA students raising and training these dogs, costs would be kept low and students could learn as well as be involved. Perhaps this may be an idea you might consider supporting. Respectfully yours.. Grant Denney