The School District of Lee County\u2019s weapons detection system has produced results, officials said Monday.<\/p>\n
A three-year comparison of OPENGATE numbers, presented during a school board meeting, shows an overall decrease in offenses.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur No. 1 priority is safety and security of our campus,\u201d Superintendent Dr. Denise Carlin said. \u201cOPENGATE is one of our premier hallmarks to make sure no firearm makes it on campus. From there, we are making sure we have other safety initiatives in place.\u201d<\/p>\n
OPENGATE is an automated system that screens backpacks and bags as students and visitors walk through. Designed to detect weapons, it also detects contraband items not allowed on campus.<\/p>\n
Safety, Security and Fleet Operations Chief Dave Newlan said OPENGATE was introduced to provide a culture of safety and trust. He said they have had incidences in the past and want to make sure nothing is brought onto campus \u2013 weapons or anything illegal.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe first introduced it in 2023. I really didn\u2019t know what it was going to show and what made a difference,\u201d Newlan said. \u201cI am happy to see these are declining. Some does contribute to OPENGATE, and having better relationships and working together does make a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n
The presentation showed data for arrests, civil citations, and notices to appear.<\/p>\n
Over a three-year period, total incidences went from 1,2318 to 834, which was further broken down by the Lee County Sheriff\u2019s Office, Cape Coral Police Department and Fort Myers Police Department.<\/p>\n
The Cape Coral Police Department had a 67% decrease \u2013 from 465 in 2023 to 142 in 2026, the Lee County Sheriff\u2019s Office had a 13% decrease from 593 to 518, and the Fort Myers Police Department had a 6% increase from 155 to 164.<\/p>\n
Newlan said the increases and decreases are a result of seeing much better relationships with students, more is being reported through FortifyFL.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomething that is very important to underscore \u2013 we want children and staff members reporting when they see unsafe situations,\u201d Carlin said. \u201cWhile we see an increase in the Fort Myers Police Department statistics \u2013 there is a whole host of reasons for that. We want everybody to see something, say something.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said they are a school district that does not hide behind numbers. Carlin cautioned her team to not draw any hard and fast conclusions from the numbers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t ever want to send a message that those numbers need to go down, because people can make them go down,\u201d Carlin said about the reporting. \u201cEverybody is responsible, including the children, for the safety of the school.\u201d<\/p>\n
The increase is in offenses of having marijuana, nicotine, and disruption.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe major decline, especially the second half of the year is related to enforcement efforts and better relationship working with administration and students on building that trust,\u201d Newlan said.<\/p>\n
He said the Fort Myers Police Department had a small increase due to notices to appear and civil citations, with the majority being for marijuana possession and disruption.<\/p>\n
Newlan said during the 2024-2025 school year there were 25 overall threats with the past school year resulting in 14. He said the major violations have gone down, and the minor violations have increased.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven if all these numbers are awful, the fact that we stopped two weapons going into school since we started \u2013 this makes it totally worthwhile,\u201d School Board Chair Armor Persons said. \u201cThose were two major things that could have resulted in something very tragic from happening.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The School District of Lee County\u2019s weapons detection system has produced results, officials said Monday. A three-year comparison…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81722,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210],"class_list":["post-365130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}