City leaders vow to keep students safe with increased school safety plan: 'We're doing everything we can'

PHILADELPHIA - As the academic year begins in Philadelphia, city leaders vowed Wednesday to keep students safer following a school year in which over 200 students were shot and more than two dozen died.

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney and the district's Chief of School Safety Kevin Bethel outlined efforts being made to reduce violence, including expanding their ‘Safe Path Program’ to 22 schools. 

The district says It's invested nearly $50M towards digital cameras and hiring more police officers to patrol school building. Over a dozen middle schools will have new technology to prevent guns from entering the building.

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"We’re not searching the kids as they come to the door, we’ve identified equipment that would identify a gun if a child came into school with a gun," Bethel said. "We’d be able to identify a child coming though with that."

Last year, the School District of Philadelphia reported 18 guns were found in and around school buildings. Mayor Kenney believes their safety efforts are sometimes undercut by accessibility of firearms on the streets to young kids and teens.

"We're always worried about our kids' safety, and we're doing everything we can to make them as safe as possible," Kenney said. 

As the school year begins to unfold with new safety protocols, parents like mother-of-five Gloria Corbin remains concerned about how the city's violence will impact her children's education.

"With the way everything is set up around here, it's not safe for kids to travel," Corbin said. "You have to really walk with them into the school building hand-in-hand, how are they going to learn?"