District staff describe AI-enabled cameras and portable weapon-detection gates; one-time camera upgrade cost cited at $1.8M

District security and operations staff briefed the Tolleson Union High School District governing board on Sept. 19 about layered safety strategies that combine personnel, training, physical barriers and technology, including AI-capable cameras and portable weapon-detection gates.

Derek Lawson, chief operations officer, framed safety as a combination of five priorities—partnerships, personnel, principal leadership, protocols and property—and described the district’s approach as layered and overlapping. He said the district has added school safety officers, increased security guards, created a dispatch position and appointed a security coordinator to monitor emergency drills and response protocols.

On technology, Lawson said the district upgraded servers and deployed AI-capable software, vape sensors, bathroom “halo” sensors and higher-megapixel cameras across multiple campuses. He provided a net cost for that camera-and-sensor project: "the net cost of that project for the entire district was around $1,800,000," excluding installation and labor; he said sensors comprised roughly 36% of that net cost, cameras 29%, the AI module about 17%, licensing 14% and servers about 4%.

Lawson described portable weapon-detection gates as two lightweight poles and a small table that can be moved to campus entry points or events. He said the gates can be staffed on each side to increase throughput and noted the devices include decorative sleeves that can be customized with school colors and mascots. "They are extremely portable. They're extremely light," Lawson said.

Board members asked about how use of the gates would affect student flow and class schedules; Lawson and staff said site-by-site studies would determine how many gates and staff members would be required and that training and staff participation would be necessary to implement the gates without excessive delays. Several board members emphasized that technology only produces value if district staff are available to act on alerts; the district noted the recent creation of a dispatch position to monitor and respond to real-time alerts.

The presentation included a question about statutory discipline: a board member noted that district policy and state law require expulsion for certain weapons and that detection systems could reduce the number of legal-expulsion cases the board must address. Lawson cautioned that security is not perfect but said layered measures reduce risk and improve response time.

No final procurement vote for weapon-detection gates was taken at the meeting; Lawson said the district had not yet issued a purchase order for gates and that exact costs for weapon-detection hardware would be provided in a future procurement discussion.