TAVARES — One in 10 middle school and high school students have been reported to use at least one tobacco product, the most popular of which is vaping. In Florida, it is illegal for anyone younger than 21 to possess any tobacco product.
The Daily Commercial spoke to Joseph Mabry, Lake County Schools’ director of security and safety, about a new pilot program LCS discussed this week at the school board meeting that will cost around $97,000.The program will employ smart sensor detection devices in restrooms and nearby areas to enforce a strict no-vaping policy.
Mabry told us where the pilot program will take place, which company the school board contracted for the device,s and how the program is funded.
Daily Commercial: Will the new devices be similar to smoke alarms? Can you explain how they will work?
Joseph Mabry: They’re smart detectors. They are software-based, based on algorithms, and they detect anomalies in air particles. So, whatever is beyond the norm, it will detect and determine the difference in the air particles, and it will send a passive alert through either the desktop or to a phone app to the administrators that there is some type of anomaly in the air particles, which alerts them that there is potentially vaping happening in that area around that detector. That allows administration to then check to see what is happening around that specific area.
Interesting. It detects smoke too about regular cigarette smoke?
The sensors are smart sensors. So, as technology with vape devices changes and the chemical makeup of the devices changes, the algorithms also change in the software, and it continues to update. So, as the manufacturers and students are becoming more savvy with their technology, the software also adapts.
What’s the name of the company supplying the detectors?
Halo.
How did you determine which company to use and fund the program?
There are 75 school safety specialists across the state, and we meet monthly, virtually, and then we meet annually at a conference.
We have vendors that sponsor our events. And Halo is one that was presented to us. Then we got feedback from other districts that may be using it, and it is something that we felt was a need here in Lake County because the help and safety concerns for our students. None of these chemicals are good. They shouldn’t, they should not be in our schools. They’re dangerous to our students. So, we get funding through grants and through state allocated money for different procedures such as hardening security systems and different things that we have in place in our schools. A grant was derived from the Bipartisan Safer Schools Act of 2022 (U.S. Department of Education, which President-elect Trump plans to abolish) and the Stronger Connections Grant (Florida Department of Education).
It focuses on providing a healthy, safe, and supportive learning environment for our students. So we had several departments that collaborated here in Lake County schools to come up with plans on how to spend that money, and we were allocated a $100,000.
Curious to learn more about K9 Samba’s assistance with vape enforcement earlier this year.
She has led to a decrease simply because not only is she finding things and detecting things, but she’s more of a deterrence just by her presence on campus.
More: Meet ‘Samba’: The vape-sniffing K9 dog in Florida schools used to crack down on vaping
Would you just briefly take us back to how the vape-detection program was initially conceived?
When we applied for the grant, we had not secured samba, and then we were provided samba through the Lake County Sheriff’s Office Charities, which we are very thankful for. … That program has worked out well. So, now this is just another layer for us to hopefully deter students from using these products in our schools.
Joseph Mabry, director of Safety & Security, is pictured here with Diane Kornegay in October 2023, Superintendent of Lake County Schools. Mabry received the Outstanding Program Support Award from Crimeline Florida last year.
Is the problem worse at any particular schoool. Are the high schools are worse than the others?
It’s obviously more of a problem in the middle and high schools, but I wouldn’t say that it is concentrated in any specific area. We noticed it at all of our middle and high schools, to be honest with you. We decided to pilot this at East Ridge High School because it is our largest high school. It allows us the greatest area to cover for maximizing the expenditure of that grant so that we can hopefully gather the most data to determine the effectiveness of it.
It’s simply just based on square footage and the largest number of students, the largest footprint, so that we can gather the most amount of data and, hopefully, determine the effectiveness to see if it’s something that we want to make more widespread across the district.
When will the pilot program be instituted and when, if successful, will it be implemented countywide?
Well, our goal with the pilot school is to have it fully implemented by spring break, which would be March of 2025. And then we intend to gather data for a year to determine if it is worth expanding to other schools.
Is there any information campaign that’s helped students understand why Lake County Schools is strictly enforcing a no-vaping policy?
We are transitioning into the LEAD program, which stands for law enforcement enforcement against drugs and violence.
My understanding is that the program is beginning to sunset DARE and we are more focused on LEAD because it goes across the, the curriculum from elementary, middle to high school. So, that’s where this is all tied into the educational side of things.
More on LEAD: Deputy Monique Barnes takes the LEAD, teaching kids about drugs and violence at Tavares High
It is also outlined in our student code of conduct and policy guide annually that is available to all of our students and parents each year.
There’s not going to be more of a visual element such as social media campaigns, posters, etc., because kids are so visual nowadays?
Well, we have signage on our campuses just to indicate that we are drug free and weapon free.
Could you tell us a little bit about your work routine, how you deal with school safety and security day to day? It must be a lot of responsibility.
Well, I have, uh, an awesome superintendent. I have an awesome sheriff. Lake County really is doing all the right things. We’re very connected through, um, the school board, through our law enforcement agencies, the sheriff’s office and our municipal partners. We are very connected with our state attorney’s office, and we are connected very closely with the Florida Department of Education and the Office of Safe Schools that provides oversight ultimately for what we do.
And you’re right, we do have a lot of statutes, a lot of state board rules for compliance, that we have to follow. We just take pride in our work. Safety and security is the number one priority of our district and of our law enforcement partners. So, we all just work hand in hand to ensure that we do everything that we can to keep our students safe while they’re on our campus so that they, we can safely return them back to their parents at the end of the day.
This article originally appeared on Daily Commercial: Q&A: Info on planned vaping detectors planned by Lake County Schools