As another school year begins, new precautions have been taken to provide a drug-free environment for students.

The new vape detectors, which were put in place over the summer, are not unique to Kingwood Park. Vape detectors have been put in schools across Humble ISD as a means to keep students from illegally carrying drugs on school campuses.

For Kingwood Park, vaping has been a reoccurring issue. This year, the administration hopes the newly added vape detectors will deter students from making bad decisions.

“It’s not a ‘got you’ because we want to put consequences in place,” principal Wes Solomon said. “It’s to discourage that type of activity at campus.”

Procedures in dealing with students who decide to vape on campus will more or less be the same, though the process of being caught with a vape may be different.

Once a student decides to vape in any area with a vape detector, a notification will be received by a school administrator with a timestamp and a location.
An AP — a woman for the girls’ bathroom and a male for the boys’ bathroom — will enter the area and escort the suspected student out. Cameras are installed outside of bathrooms to aid administrators in finding the correct student. The student will then be searched. If a vape is found, it will be tested in order to determine whether it carries nicotine or THC.

Once the contents of the vape are clear, the student will be dealt with according to the school code of conduct depending on the severity of the offense. If in any case the carrier of the vape is unclear, interrogations will be employed in order to settle any confusion.

“Having a device on campus that allows us to help monitor that with you guys is a positive,” assistant principal Gary Brain said.

The administration hopes the vape detectors facilitate a safe and structured environment for students to learn while also educating students about vaping.

“We don’t know the long-term effects of vaping,” Solomon said. “I’m all about educating people and kids.”