Various coalitions of faculty members and student advocates are calling on the Los Angeles Unified School District to change its policy on student searches and metal detectors.

Some critics of the policy claim it stokes distrust and animosity from students at the expense of the learning environment administrators are trying to create.

“There’s an inherent tension between beefed-up security on one end of the rope and maintaining a welcoming, supportive school climate on the other,” says Ken Trump, who heads National School Safety and Security Services.

The policy, established in October of 2015, requires all secondary schools to “conduct daily random metal detector searches of students” in addition to searching a minimum of ten lockers each school day.

Some teachers say the searches create an “us-versus-them” mentality among students who feel like they’re being targeted and their privacy is being violated, reports csmonitor.com.

Still, school security experts point to falling crime rates at schools and recent shootings as reasons to believe the policy is necessary.

Campus Safety has reported on a similar debate taking place across the country, at New York City Schools. There hasn’t been a student shot in New York City Schools, where metal detectors are installed in 88 district buildings, in 13 years. At the same time, as recently as the 2013-2014 school year more than 1,200 weapons (including firearms, knives, boxcutters, razors and Tasers) were confiscated from students in the district.

Read Next: NYC School Safety Agents Union Accuses City of Deflating School Crime Stats

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