JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Action News Jax is digging into your children’s schools and the threats they face. Data shows a dramatic increase in the number of weapons on campus, forcing school districts to step up their response to keep kids safe.
As Investigator Emily Turner reports, the statistics are scary, but there’s more to them than meets the eye.
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One grandmother of a Ribault High School student said, “I worry about everybody. I don’t care who it is. I worry about everybody because how easy kids have access to weapons and stuff.”
She had to face that fear last May, when a student brought a gun to school.
“It scared me,” she said because her granddaughter was in the 10th grade there.
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That Ribault gun was one of dozens of recovered weapons on Duval County Public Schools campuses last year, ten of them guns, a tally that has climbed over the years. Action News Jax dug into the data to see how many weapons are found in Northeast Florida schools.
Based on state statute and reporting data, weapons aren’t just guns, they also include knives, pepper spray, or any “instrument that can inflict serious harm on another person.”
In the 2023-24 school year, there were 89 weapons found on DCPS grounds, and climbing numbers in St. Johns, Clay, and Putnam schools. Compare that to a decade before and the numbers have more than doubled in St Johns and Clay and were four times higher in Duval.
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But while the jump is concerning, DCPS Police Chief Jackson Short said it can also be misleading.
“We would explain the increase,” he said, “as we are getting better at finding the weapons and holding students accountable. You don’t know how many firearms or weapons you had in the schools in years past when the technology was not as good.”
Much of that is the result of legislation passed in the wake of the Parkland shooting: officers at all campuses, the Fortify Florida app for reporting school threats and more access to grants for hardening schools and crime prevention.
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In addition, DCPS has a weapon detection canine, weapons detectors at the entrances of every high school and plans to expand that further.
“We’re starting to look at the middle schools now,” Short said about weapons detectors. “We will implement that same technology into our middle schools and eventually down into our elementary schools, so that all of our schools are covered with the weapons detections.”
Because of those systems, Short said only one of the ten guns found on DCPS campuses last year actually made it into the school. Most were found in parking lots or at after-school events.
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While its system isn’t foolproof, Short said it’s one they’re committed to improving and keeping students safe.
“It’s a daily challenge,” he said. “It’s never an end goal. It’s something that we have to wake up every morning and do again.”
Action News Jax reached out to other local districts about their safety measures. St. Johns County School District, Nassau County School District, and Clay County District Schools did not respond. Putnam County School District’s spokesperson said it has just added a gunpowder-sniffing canine to its team
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