PORT ORANGE, Fla. — Volusia County Schools implemented a new weapons detection system at Atlantic High School Tuesday morning.

The school district is the first in the state to use the new technology, which uses AI-powered sensors to detect weapons in backpacks and prevent them from getting on campus.

Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood and school superintendent Dr. Carmen Balgobin were present for the unveiling of the new screening system.

They say their priority with this new pilot is to ensure the safety of students and staff.

Students place their bookbags and any other items they are carrying on a scanner while they walk through the new weapon detection system with their phones in hand.

When the system triggers an alert, staff then conduct a secondary screening where they hand-search the item in question.

The new system can process up to 2,000 people per hour.

This new initiative also goes hand-in-hand with some goals outlined in Volusia County Schools’ 2024-2027 Strategic Plan to ensure the “high-quality instruction” of its students.

Those goals include enhancing support for school safety and security by creating a ‘see something, say something culture’ and assessing the district’s new safety practices, that include the pilot of the Evolv weapon detection system.

Chitwood, among other county leaders, agrees it is the most efficient and least intrusive solution to keeping students and faculty safe at school.

“It’s like going through airport security, except it’s faster. If you really look at it and for us if the weapon gets on campus, we lost. Everybody knows that. And that’s the objective here, is to prevent that weapon from getting on campus through the technology we have here, through our apps online to notify us of tips coming in,” Chitwood explained during a press conference at Atlantic High School.

The pilot program at Atlantic High will serve as a model before applying it across all Volusia County high schools next school year.