After Thanksgiving break, Tamaqua Area School District will ramp up safety measures through the use of random metal detectors.

Superintendent Ray Kinder made the announcement at the school board meeting Tuesday night and planned to send a letter home to parents today.

Board President Larry Wittig said today, “It will be implemented however administration feels that it’s most effective to mitigate anyone bringing something in.

“The board told administration that we want them used,” Wittig said. “It’s up to them to determine the most effective way to use them and not create a two-hour erosion of the academic day.”

Wittig said the district began addressing the safety measures of schools, and looked at “the most egregious act, the most gut-wrenching possible scenario, an active shooter.”

“We tried to do what happens if the worst-case scenario (would occur),” he said. “Within that context, metal detectors were the easy thing because we already had them.”

Wittig said the district had implemented metal detectors years ago in the buildings.

“We will continue to work on other things,” he said. “We always planned to go further. Everybody just got worked up over the first policy.”

Wittig said the board also talked about the investment the district can have in infrastructure in terms of the buildings and moving entryways around to have more secure entryways with regard to egress and camera systems.

“All these will be addressed,” he said, adding that the district will use some of the money from its capital account from the prior sale of the former Rush Elementary school building. “It’s a high expense.”

Above all else, Wittig said “the bottom line is safety.”

“At the end of the day, are the kids safer?” he said. “The first priority is effectiveness, and then what it costs.”

On Nov. 14, the Tamaqua Education Association filed a lawsuit in the Schuylkill County Court of Common Pleas to stop the district from arming staff.

Tamaqua Education Association officials say a policy permitting Tamaqua school employees to carry firearms in school violates the Pennsylvania School Code and other laws limiting the use of firearms by public employees.

The action came one week after more than 100 people, including students and parents, packed a Tamaqua Area School Board meeting to speak out against the policy.

On Sept. 18, the school board enacted a policy authorizing administrators, teachers or other district staff who undergo special training to carry firearms and use deadly force while performing school duties.

The group wants the court to declare that the school board exceeded its authority by adopting a policy that conflicts with the school code and other laws and unlawfully permits school employees “to carry firearms and use deadly force without the training and experience required by the General Assembly.”

At a Nov. 7 school board meeting, parents and community members in the district laid out extensive alternatives to the policy, including better screening of visitors, infrastructure changes, shooter detection systems, and investments in mental health support and threat assessments.

The Tamaqua Education Association is an affiliate of the Pennsylvania State Education.