Arlington high schools introduce ID checks after Yorktown trespassing incident
Three public high schools in Arlington are stepping up security measures after a trespassing incident at Yorktown last week.
Starting this week, students at Yorktown, Wakefield and Washington-Liberty high schools will need to show a pre-approved ID to staff members to enter school buildings. Accepted forms include school-issued photo IDs, StudentVue accounts and government-issued IDs such as a driver's license.
The new requirement comes about a week after a former student allegedly entered Yorktown High School, prompting a significant police response and trespassing charges.
Jim Miller, assistant director of Safety, Security & Emergency Management for Arlington Public Schools, says the decision is a response to the evolving "threat landscape," which includes hoax bomb threats, threats on social media and swatting incidents in which people try to get a police SWAT team to show up to a location where no emergency exists.
"For us, this was a natural progression ... we're just doing an extra layer of security and checks to ensure that our schools are safe in the morning and throughout the day." Miller told ARLnow.
Yorktown was the first school to implement the new system, which went into effect yesterday (Wednesday). Miller says Washington-Liberty and Wakefield plan to start requiring the same forms of identification starting tomorrow (Friday).
So far, Miller said things have been running smoothly at Yorktown.
"It was quite routine," he said. "In fact, there was no impact to the arrival. Students were able to get through the school as if they as if it was a normal day."
Miller noted that students who forget their IDs will still be allowed into the building after verifying their identity through their Social Security number, student ID number or a quick name search.
It's unclear whether the new system will be permanent or temporary. For now, APS is taking a wait-and-see approach.
"We are going to try to understand this, see how it works out, see what the impact is on staff and so on," Miller said. "There are a lot of factors that we have to evaluate. We'll conduct an evaluation after a few weeks and determine whether or not this is going to go longer term."
