On April 15, 2025 Woodbridge Township School District, located in central New Jersey, implemented metal detectors for their high schools’ entrances. Due to a recent security breach where a student brought a loaded weapon to Woodbridge High School, one of the three high schools in the district, Superintendent Dr. Joseph Massimino, abruptly decided that the high schools in Woodbridge Township needed an extra protective measure at the entrances. The decision doesn’t seem to be as thought through as you would think.
Adding the metal detectors posed entirely new problems to the schools, staff and students. The first day of metal detectors, first block attendance was not taken until 9:10 a.m. when attendance is normally taken at 7:50 a.m. This continued for weeks but with time, has improved to taking attendance around 8:15 a.m.
Teachers of block 1 classes have been leery to review new material until majority of the class is in attendance. Schedules were never adjusted to compensate block 1 classes having less instructional time. This delayed learning and prohibited teachers from covering all of the material they normally would have covered.
Some students roam the hallways because they know that teachers will be taking attendance after 8 a.m. So, marking a student late for block 1 is harder for teachers. Seeing long lines to get into school, some students leave the school property and go to Dunkin’ and aren’t worried about being marked late since they can’t really reprimand students for being late when attendance is being delayed.
Late attendance problem
The reason for the late attendance is there are only two entrances with metal detectors and bag searchers for the entire school of students to enter through. 1,365 students ae expected to enter through two doors. Yes, as of April 15, Colonia High School announced that the doors will open at 7:15 a.m., which is earlier than normal. This was done in order to accommodate the amount of students being un-proportional to the two entrances. However, this has not solved the problem.
Paul Stankiewicz, freshman at CHS, said, “Honestly they didn’t give us enough time to adjust to waking up earlier to beat the bus lines.”
To this day, attendance is taken at 8:15aa.m. (more or less every day) and lines are still incredibly long in the morning. On top of the length of the lines, during inclement weather, the lines take even longer and the cafeteria and lobby floors are slippery and it gets messy.
Victoria Stepien, a 12th grade student, stated, “The whole thing is a disaster. There is no way this was the best possible solution.”
Solution
Opening up a third entrance is the bare minimum. For 1,365 students, the two entrances split the student count per door roughly to 680. If there was a third entrance added, this would bring the student entrance count to 455 per door which is a lot more manageable and would be faster in the morning.
When asked, Mr. Ramos, Vice Principal at CHS, said that a new entrance would require more security guards and someone from administration to monitor the area and said that the idea of a third entrance is something to consider. Currently Woodbridge Township is looking to hire security checkers from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. for $28 per hour. If interested, please apply here.
