HAZLETON - In the old days, many public school buildings had two separate entrance doors - one for girls and one for boys.
Gender segregation, which went by the wayside decades ago, will be reinstated at Hazleton Area High School when students return to class Thursday.
Then, the intent was to prevent flirty distractions.
Today, the policy is designed to help move the high school's 1,700 students more efficiently through heightened security that includes walk-through metal detectors and bag searches.
"The primary reason we're doing this is to look for weapons," district Superintendent Francis X. Antonelli said.
When students return to the high school campus later this week, all male students will be required to enter the high school through the main entrance and pass through one of two metal detectors in the main lobby. All female students must enter through the southeast doors next to the faculty parking lot and pass through one of two metal detectors inside the entrance.
Athletes, band members and others carrying larger duffel bags must enter the building through the natatorium doors, where there will be one metal detector.
Metal detectors also are installed at the Ninth Grade Center, Career Center and administration building.
Everyone entering any of the buildings must walk through a detector and hand over backpacks and purses to a security guard for inspection.
But getting 1,700 students to pass through metal detectors at the main entrance to the high school in a timely fashion would be problematic, Antonelli said. So district officials devised the new building-entrance system in an effort to speed up the process.
At the Career Center, all students must enter through the main entrance and pass through metal detectors in the main lobby - one for male students and one for females.
A similar procedure will be followed at the Ninth Grade Center: All students must enter through the main entrance where there will be two metal detectors set up in the main lobby - one for male students, one for females.
At the administration building, everyone entering the building is required to walk through the metal detector and hand over bags for inspection.
Once classes start, anyone coming into any of the buildings must enter through the main entrance and check in at the front desk.
The new regulation is spelled out in a letter from the school board, which parents receive at orientation for incoming high school students. According to the letter, the steps are being taken because weapons and drugs in the schools, on school grounds and in the community have made it more difficult for teachers to teach and students to learn.
Antonelli said the target of the measure is weapons, but if other contraband is found, such as drugs, the appropriate law enforcement authorities will be notified and the student or adult will face punishment.
The increased security is a result of an April incident at the Ninth Grade Center when a cleaning person found 83 .22-caliber bullets in a boys lavatory. When students returned to school the next morning, district officials put the three high school buildings under a restricted movement security measure while state police continued their investigation, which ended with the arrest of a 14-year-old boy and two 16-year-old boys.
Administrators have also created a new class schedule for the 2012-13 school year that will eliminate the need for students to walk from one campus building to another during the school day.
In the past, a student at the Career Center who also takes an advanced placement English class, for example, would leave the Career Center and walk across West 23rd Street to the high school for the English class, then walk back to the Career Center for vocational classes. Under the new arrangement, the English teacher will walk to the Career Center to teach the specialized curriculum.
The "closed building" system limits the possibility of students accessing contraband outside the buildings.