PLYMOUTH, Minnesota — A student-led organization is getting the word out about their solution to make schools safer.
School shootings are the top safety concern for parents, according to a 2022 Back-to-School Study from Qualtrics.
August 24 will mark three months since a shooter killed 19 children and two adults at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. It marked the 27th school shooting of 2022.
"We're students. This is important to us and this is a real problem and we're scared," said Jake Hoversten, a junior at Wayzata High School.
Hoversten is one of seven students — all incoming juniors at Wayzata High — who formed the nonprofit organization "Vigilance Safety." The group is focused on developing solutions to improve school safety and reduce casualties caused by school shootings.
The students have spent seven years participating in Destination Imagination which fosters student creativity and innovation through project-based learning. Their focus on school safety earned them first place at this year's global competition in the Service Learning Challenge category.
"This summer we really realized that we could make a difference and turn this into something," Hoversten said.
After two years of discussions, Vigilance Safety is proposing radio frequency identification (RFID) tags built into guns.
"A RFID tag is a short-range tag that when scanned emits a small message to the scanner. So the idea is we want to put RFID tags in guns and RFID scanners in schools," explained Neev Zeroni, a WHS junior.
When an RFID tag scanner senses a gun near the school, it would trigger a lockdown.
"In terms of integration, there's a big elephant in the room and that is the stopgap which addresses the 400 million guns that are currently out there," Zeroni said.
Vigilance Safety has come up with three phases to address the issue. Phase one would include gun owners volunteering to get the tags; phase two would include offering incentives; phase three would be government mandated insurance or government mandated RFID integration.
"The goal is to have all future guns be created with these tags already inside," Zeroni said.
Hoversten added, "The tags that we use, they don't actually track you. They're passive tags which means they can only be detected when they're in front of a scanner. Otherwise, there's no way of knowing where it is."
Throughout the year, they have collaborated with experts including the Plymouth Police Department and Wayzata High School leaders. They've used that feedback to tailor their solution.
"With RFID tags being embedded in guns, we're not taking away any people's guns or gun rights... we have an intermediary solution that would just... prevent school shootings and prevent guns on school premises," WHS junior Rushil Khadilkar.
"They understand that there's a lot of challenges. They understand there's going to be a lot of resistance. But it's just one more step. They need to make some progress... that's what their mission is," said Jenny Zeroni, CEO of Vigilance Safety and parent to two of the group's members.
They address some of the potential obstacles for integration, including unregistered guns and 3D printed guns. They also are looking at solutions when it comes to things like RFID on metal, interference and tampering.
"They want be taken seriously because... they're committed to making this a serious solution," Jenny Zeroni said.
They also realize they are one of many groups working to address school safety but their focus is on technical solutions.
Hoversten said, "We want to find a way to make us feel safe and to make other students feel safe and to reduce this problem because it is real and we need a real solution."
Vigilance Safety was co-founded by Alex Freeman, Carlee Freeman, Jake Hoversten, Anuj Kakkad, Rushil Khadilkar, May Zeroni and Neev Zeroni.
The group is seeking funding to develop prototypes. They are currently in the process of becoming a 501(c)(3).