Houston ISD will install weapons detectors in all its high schools, starting with those schools where weapons have already been found this year.
Lamar is first, followed by Northside and Bellaire, HISD Superintendent Mike Miles said in a Tuesday afternoon press conference. Asked how he expects they’ll be able to move students through quickly especially in schools with massive student numbers, Miles explained these are a different kind of metal detector.
“What we have is not your normal security process. These are your new type of security weapon detections systems where you can get 600 kids going through those towers in 30 minutes or so. So if you have a school like Lamar it needs several towers, in fact they have seven. Seven sets of towers.”
Being the first school to employ this new process has meant Lamar has spent a lot of time getting ready to implement it.
“They’ve been practicing. This is why it’s taken a while. They’ve been practicing, making sure,” Miles said. “And they’ve reduced their entrances to two instead of five. Because we do know that the more entrances you have the less secure a building is. So single-point entry is what we try to do. Because Lamar is so big we had to have a couple. Most of the other schools are getting down to one or two.”
In response to a question Miles said the new detection system is being paid for with grant money. The towers will be staffed by teachers, office personnel and learning coaches on a rotating basis, he said, with HISD police officers called in if any weapons are found. And it won’t be just students going through them. Anyone who comes to the school will have to pass through one of the security towers, he said.
“This is not a cure-all. Weapon detection systems doesn’t mean you won’t have guns in schools. But this is one more layer.”
“This is not a cure-all. Weapon detection systems doesn’t mean you won’t have guns in schools. But this is one more layer.”
Once weapon detectors are installed in all the high schools, Miles said HISD will consider whether to install them in any of its middle schools.
In the fast-paced press conference — something he hadn’t held for a few weeks — Miles also addressed the investigative story by Asher Lehrer-Small of Houston Landing that revealed that the superintendent’s administration approved about $870 million in purchase agreements without ever seeking board approval over the last 16 months.
Calling it “a breakdown in our purchasing review process,” Miles acknowledged this was done in error and that steps have already been taken both to examine the agreements involved and to make sure this doesn’t happen again. He insisted that nothing was agreed to that shouldn’t have been.
The team involved in reviewing these so-called purchasing cooperatives (where businesses work together to buy in bulk and lower costs) thought those kind of agreements didn’t have to get board approval, he said.
“No laws were broken. This was a good faith error but but nevertheless it was an error and must be rectified. The Board had directed our external auditor to review these projects and purchases and the auditor determined there was no violation of purchasing requirements and the purchases were within approved budgeted amounts.
“There was no mal-intent. We’ve identified some immediate practice changes and make sure this kind of error doesn’t happen again. We’ll be adding an attorney to the legal services team to supervise procurement actions and contract approval.”
Responding to a question about why the purchase amounts were nearly double that of the average monthly cost of the two years before, Miles said “I know that we have a $2.2 billion budget so we do a lot of procurements. I know that we didn’t do anything unusual in regards to procurements. First semester there are more expenditures than the second part of the year.”
The issue of weather and heating systems in the schools resurfaced. Last year at this time, students were taking standardized tests in school buildings that couldn’t handle the freezing temperatures outside. Miles did close the school briefly, but shortly after that said he regretted doing so. Parent and teacher complaints only accelerated as heating and water problems continued to plague several schools during the winter season.
This week, students are taking the NWEA MAP Assessments tests and it is somewhat warmer than last week, Miles said: “We’re still going to have chillers go down. Hopefully it won’t be as bad as last year where we had a number of cool classrooms and and some kids were taking exams in their coats.”
The week after that, however, is another matter with freezing temperatures anticipated.
“We’re going to be fighting the heating wars all winter. We’ve got old infrastructure. Maintenance crews will be out. If it does get down to the 20s we’re going to have several chillers and heating systems go out. And we’ll try to get them online as fast as possible. Maintenance crews will be out at 4 or 5 in the morning. Some of it is patchwork. My hope is that we’ll keep all schools open.”
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025.
