ORANGE COUNTY, Florida. – Orange County Public Schools (OCPS) has officially ended its enhanced security screening pilot program, known as OPENGATE.

The program was announced last year and is intended to streamline the process of checking for weapons and other prohibited items on school premises.

OCPS announced in December 2023 that it would initially roll out the program at a handful of test schools before ramping it up nationwide.

Despite the promising start, OPENGATE had to overcome some significant hurdles right from the start.

In early 2024, OCPS Superintendent Maria Vazquez announced that morning screenings were taking much longer than expected, causing delays and increasing the workload of school staff. Students in the pilot program were not getting to class on time due to shortages.

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The district then reduced testing from seven to just four locations, with the statewide rollout set to include all 23 high schools.

Now, just weeks into the new school year, OCPS has announced that the OPENGATE pilot project has ended and statewide implementation will not proceed.

Michael Ollendorff, spokesman for Orange County Public Schools, said:

“The pilot program with OPENGATE was completed last school year. It was decided that the district would not implement the program due to the overall cost and the number of staff required to operate the system on a daily basis,” he said.

The estimated total costs are not limited to the costs of the screeners:

• Equipment costs: The OPENGATE devices, which were to be deployed on several campuses, cost a total of $475,000 for the pilot program.

• Personnel costs: The need for additional staff to manage and operate the devices on a daily basis – Angie Gallo, OCPS School Board member for District 1, estimates that each school will need eight to 10 additional staff members to properly handle the OPENGATE workflow. This means that OCPS will need to hire up to 230 additional staff members.

• Time costs: The impact on students, teachers and staff, with longer queues and delays becoming a significant problem.

Gallo said the system worked well, but added, “Students had to take apart their backpacks. They had to take out all the water bottles if they were steel, and their notebooks… So that was a lot of work for them, and then it took a lot of manpower on our part to get the kids safely and quickly across the room to their classes.”

As OCPS moves away from OPENGATE, the district will return to its traditional methods of security screening, including random searches and handheld metal detectors. Gallo said existing OPENGATE equipment will be used for some security screenings and at large school events.

“We’ll continue to use it for random searches and large events,” Gallo said. “But to use it on a daily basis, it really depends on the staffing levels needed.”

The decision to refrain from widespread implementation underscores the complexity and costs associated with the new technology in public high schools.

And although OCPS no longer plans to use OPENGATE on a large scale, it is already being used in other Florida counties, such as Osceola and Broward counties.

The results have been mixed: Osceola County reported earlier this month that the rollout had gone smoothly, while Broward County experienced significant delays for students arriving for class on the first two days of school.

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