“We had dozens of alerts. Essentially our office staff was around the building being alerted essentially all day,” Principal Justin Craft stated.

HODGENVILLE, Ky. — Class is again in session for LaRue County High School, however this yr college directors are cracking down on vaping.

After seeing an increase within the variety of youngsters vaping all through the college district, officers have determined to take issues into their very own fingers by putting in new vape detecting devices inside the highschool.

“It will lead to prevention and we feel like even after just less than a week, we have the data to back that up,” Principal Justin Craft stated, including the detectors are extremely delicate and positioned in a particular space. “It’s not like the vapor has to get right up in the detector.”

Craft stated as soon as somebody breathes out the chemical vapors from a vape pen, the sensor sends an alert to highschool leaders’ telephones. On Tuesday alone, officers stated the variety of notifications they obtained had been staggering.

“We had dozens of alerts. Essentially our office staff was around the building being alerted essentially all day,” he stated.

Since then, Craft stated vaping has died down inside the college, nevertheless it has gotten some pushback from dad and mom. He instructed WHAS11 the aim is not to punish youngsters, it is to guard them.

“We know how tough of a problem this is and how tough of a habit it is to kick,” Craft stated. “At the end of the day, it’s all about trying to keep kids healthy and safe. You know, we can sleep at night because we feel we’re trying to do the right thing.”

Proper now, detectors are solely inside the college’s restrooms since they’re the areas the place college students usually cover. However Craft is assured extra will probably be put in.

Till then, he encourages different colleges to do the identical.

“We’re not naive and we know that kids are always going to find ways to work the system,” Craft added. “We get that and we know that. But again, it’s worth a lot to us to let folks know in the school and community, we realize there’s an issue, we do try to do thinks about it. We want kids to know that and we really look out for their best interest in doing so.”

Hodgenville Police instructed WHAS11 the vape detectors had been purchased with grant cash from the Livin’ Properly LaRue Coalition.

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