What are they?

By: Teagan Cofie

As the teen vaping rates rise once again, High schools across the nation (including ours) have been trying to eliminate the usage of nicotine by its students. To accomplish this, schools have turned to HALO smart sensors to solve their nicotine predicament. As stated on the HALO Smart Detector’s website, HALOs have won over 60 awards and can detect flammables, hazardous chemicals, and air quality changes such as vaping and smoking and changes in temperature and humidity but will it truly help prevent vaping in schools altogether? 

One could definitely say that vaping is a large problem that our school faces in the 21st century, but it’s not just us. As of 2022, about 1 in 10 high school students currently use e-cigarettes. An Oct. 25, 2021 study found that the number of vaping teens doubled between 2013 and 2020, and the number of minors who stated they’d vaped in the past 30 days rose from 1.6% to 8.4% in the same time. But because of the implementation of HALO sensors, this number could potentially decrease and improve the well-being of our school. One review available on their website claims that prior to the installation they had over 20 EMS calls for students that they believed were suffering from effects of vaping and they said that since the devices had been in place they have not had to make any. According to feedback from our staff, they said that overall there are probably fewer kids vaping as often so they think there’s been improvement post installation. When asked about the environment before the sensors “it was so bad that there were times I would walk in the bathroom and it would look like I was in a sauna, it was literally like hazy air…it was crazy, ” said Mr. Henderson, 9th grade English and bathroom monitor. 

Based on these opinions alone it seems as though in the short amount of time the sensors have been put in place they’ve been improving the vaping issue to a certain degree, and will hopefully make a larger impact on vape use in our school. If all goes well the HALOs, the #1 vape detector worldwide that is in over 1,500 school districts throughout the country, will make this year healthier and potentially form Jeff into a smoke free campus.