FORT LAUDERDALE – Broward public school students are facing new realities as they return to classrooms on Monday for the first day of the new year.
Broward has the sixth largest school system in the country with over 250,000 students, 31,000 employees and more than 320 schools, centers, technical colleges and charter schools.
In the district’s 32 high schools, students will have to pass through metal detectors. Students will be allowed to walk through with their book bags but the district warns some common items like laptops, binders with metal spines and even umbrellas and sunglasses cases will set off the machine’s alarm. If a metal detector goes off, students will go to a second station to be wanded.
The number of metal detectors at each school varies based on the number of students at that school and the size.
On the first day of the new metal detectors, long lines formed at West Broward High School in Pembroke Pines.