BATON ROUGE - If you have children in East Baton Rouge Public Schools, new security measures could be coming. 

Back in March of last year, East Baton Rouge Parish Schools began deploying metal detectors in high schools across the district.

Now, Superintendent LaMont Cole says they are looking to add another security measure: the RhinoWare Lockdown System.

"Be on every classroom door and then some of the external doors as well, so they couldn't even get in the school if they were trying to," he said.

Cole says the devices would cost about $3.5 million to install districtwide. If approved, funding for installation at the first two high schools - Istrouma High School and then Belaire High - will come from grants and money donated from the Baton Rouge Area Foundation. Cole says they plan to start with five high schools in the district. 

"I think we have seen a series of incidents that have taken place around the schools, and so when we talk to the students at those schools, they talk to me a great deal about doing more to ensure they feel safe," Cole said.

Data from the K-12 school shooting database claims that a majority of school shootings between 1966 and 2025 happened outside of school buildings.

Michael Matranga, a former United States Secret Service Agent and the former director of security for the Texas City Independent School District, says there are other things that could be done before investing in barricades.

"The United States Secret Service for decades now has said that early warning signs and prevention and intervention is the key to getting those kids or even staff members off that pathway to violence. There is no lock that is going to prevent the bad intentions of someone who wants to commit harm, that's the truth."

Cole says they don't want an active shooter situation to take place on any campus, but in the event it does, he says they want to be prepared.

"It's a continuous conversation. No one thing fixes every situation. I think you do the best you can with what you have, based on what you know. We know weapons detectors deter people from bringing weapons on campus, so we invested in that," Cole said.

If the new security measure receives final approval from the school board next week, Cole says students can start seeing them being installed by the end of this month or early next month.