At a previously scheduled community meeting Tuesday night, Dallas Independent School District Superintendent Michael Hinojosa told concerned parents the district is reviewing the policies and procedures regarding the use of metal detectors in Dallas schools.
"I doubt if anything changes for this year, but there's going to be a significant review, and I anticipate some significant changes for next year," Hinojosa told reporters.
Hinojosa says surveillance video showing the student entering the building will be released, but only at the proper time in the investigation.
Dallas ISD police added extra officers Tuesday at an Oak Cliff high school after a shooting at the school Monday morning. [[377823221,C]]
Police say a 15-year-old student brought a loaded .22 caliber pistol, a Derringer, to Justin F. Kimball High School with him.
The student then accidentally shot himself in the hand and leg in a classroom at about 10:30 a.m. He was rushed to hospital.
"His injuries are quite serious," said Dallas ISD Police Chief Craig Miller. "But they are non-life threatening injuries."
Officers are still investigating why the 15-year-old brought the loaded gun with him to school in the first place, and also where he got the weapon. He now faces mandatory expulsion.
Police say they haven't decided on any charges yet for the student or his parents.
There is a metal detector at the front door entrance to Kimball High School.
Miller said the student arrived with a parent Monday morning after the first period bell had already rung to begin the school day, and it appears no one stopped the student as he walked through the detector.
"We want to talk to the person who was there monitoring the metal detector stand. We certainly want to make sure the metal detector was working," Miller said.
A Dallas ISD statement said that "procedures for use of the metal detectors was not applied" in this case.
Many parents are outraged.
"Having just one metal detector at the door is just unacceptable. The school needs to be brought up to par," said parent Eva Alexandro, who rushed to Kimball after her 16-year-old daughter texted her about the shooting.
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"She just said, 'Mom, I'm at the gym. I'm hiding. I'm scared, but I'm safe,'" Alexandro said.
Miller said the student was in a classroom with about 25 other students when he accidentally shot himself with the small-caliber pistol.
"The student came in this morning for a parent-teacher conference. The metal detectors are monitored differently after school starts," he said. "The student, in this instance, came into the school building for this meeting with a parent, and the metal detectors weren't being observed at that point."
Many parents said that in light of the shooting, the front-door entrance needs to be monitored all day long.
"I'm furious. I'm just furious right now," said parent Lashell Booker, waiting to get word from her ninth grader son.
She said it's scary that people – students, or visitors – aren't automatically stopped if they set off the metal detector, regardless of the time of day.
"I'm very scared. Because we drop our children off, our students come to school, and we hope they are fairly protected and I come to find out today they are not," she said.
One student snapped a photograph of the gun moments after the shooting, after it fell to the floor. It quickly circulated among high school students' social media accounts.
Dallas ISD police say they are still taking statements from witnesses about what led up to the shooting, and they still need to review the school's front-door surveillance video.
"We want to look at the video and see exactly what took place here and make sure guns don't come onto campuses," Miller said.
Many students say security could easily be improved by keeping a staff member or hall monitor at the front door at all times.
"There's only one metal detector at the front of the school. It's understandable, but honestly security should have been better," said 10th grader Liberty Pena.
"It's pretty scary. I'm fearful of my life because of what happened," she said, being comforted by her parents.
Teachers are also upset.
"There are all kinds of weapons that can be hidden, and if the detectors are not working then everyone at that campus is at jeopardy in some way," said Rena Honea, with the Dallas Teachers Union.
NBC 5's Kevin Cokely, Holley Ford and Brian Roth contributed to this report.
