Richland 2 reports weapons and thousands of Lightspeed alerts; officials describe parent-notification process

Mark Hutton, senior chief of operations, presented an annual safety roll-up to the board focused on high-school metal-detector screenings and Lightspeed Chromebook monitoring.

Hutton said the district conducted over 2,000,000 screenings at high-school locations in the 2025–26 school year and reported four firearms and 24 other weapons found. He added that the district estimates it found about 191 vapes last year and that staff have revamped reporting methods to improve accuracy.

On Chromebook monitoring, Hutton said the Lightspeed system triggered more than 3,000 imminent and high alerts in 2025–26, specifying "179 imminent alerts and a total of 2,901 high alerts." He described "imminent" as a category that prompts immediate district follow-up during school hours and a parent-contact protocol after hours.

Board members asked whether Lightspeed flags result in disciplinary action and how quickly parents are contacted after an after-hours alert. Hutton said the district's safety team contacts parents directly after hours and, if parents are unreachable, the district calls the Richland County Sheriff's Department nonemergency line to request an assessment. He also said that human review at Lightspeed and district-level screening reduce false positives.

Why it matters: The numbers quantify safety-monitoring activity and weapon detections in district schools and illustrate how AI-driven monitoring, human review and district procedures are used to identify and respond to potential threats and welfare concerns.