Students at Erie High School are scheduled to return to in-person classes on May 2 after they learn remotely for two weeks as Erie High recovers from the April 5 shooting of a student inside the school.

At the Erie School Board's monthly study session on Wednesday night, Superintendent Brian Polito announced May 2 as the probable return date. It was the board's first public meeting since the shooting, in which a 14-year-old was charged in juvenile court with shooting the victim three times, including in the leg.

The district on Thursday released information affirming the May 2 as the "targeted date for in-person instruction to resume," and also said an open house at Erie High is scheduled for April 27 from 5 to 7 p.m. On display at the open house will be the metal detectors that are going in at Erie High, according to the district.

The Erie School District, with more than 10,000 students, is on spring break through April 18, and Erie High students have not been in any classes since the shooting. Though April 18 is the last day of vacation for the district, Erie High students and staff have a non-attendance day on the 19th.

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Erie High, the Erie School District's largest school, has about 2,300 students, though about 1,440 of those students attend classes in the 500,000-square-foot building at 3325 Cherry St. The other Erie High students attend alternative education classes or online classes through the district's cyberschool programs, according to district figures.

Erie High students will take virtual classes from April 20-29 while the school district installs portable metal detectors at Erie High and undertakes other security measures at the school, including fixing locks on exterior doors and installing security blinds on windows.

The district is installing the metal detectors in response to the shooting, though district records show Polito's administration for the past two months had been discussing bringing in the detectors in light of the spike in violence among juveniles in Erie during the pandemic.

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Students at the school district's 15 other school buildings will return to in-person classes on April 19, after spring break, Polito said. The district will have temporary metal detectors at its three middle schools and at Northwest Pennsylvania Collegiate Academy, the district's other high school, Polito and other district officials said.

Those metal detectors, of the more traditional permanent walk-through design — like at airports — will be in place until the district gets portable metal detectors for the middle schools and high schools, including Erie High, said Neal Brokman, the school district's executive director of operations. The portable metal detectors feature stanchions that students walk between.

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The district received the larger metal detectors on an emergency basis from CEIA USA, of Hudson, Ohio, the district's vendor for metal detectors, Brokman said. He said CEIA is supplying the portable metal detectors, which he said are on order and are to arrive by early May for all the district schools that will get them. Brokman said the district is aiming to get portable detectors for Erie High sooner.

The School Board plans to approve the CEIA contract and the other contracts for the security upgrades at its regular monthly voting meeting on April 20. The board can approve the contracts retroactively because of the emergency nature of the security upgrades, Polito said.

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All the security upgrades will cost more than $1 million, including $350,000 for the metal detectors. The state Department of Education has authorized the school district to use pandemic relief funding to pay for the upgrades, Polito said.

"The vast majority of the upgrades will be done within two to three weeks," Polito told the School Board. "Our plan right now is to have those in place and bring our students back, tentatively on May 2."

At the start of Wednesday night's study session, or committee-of-the-whole meeting, Polito commented on the shooting, the first in the Erie School District. He thanked the police and staff for their response.

"The events of that day affected all of us, most especially the staff and students and Erie High and the first responders," Polito said. "Healing will take time and action."

"You, our staff, parents and community members are rightly demanding to know what we as a district are doing to make sure something like this never happens again."

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Polito outlined the security upgrades, including the installation of the metal detectors.

"To be clear, no Erie High student or staff member will return to the building until those safety measures are in place," Polito said.

Polito spoke to a nearly empty auditorium at East Middle School, where the district had moved the study session in anticipation of a large crowd attending the meeting.

No members of the public addressed the board, and only a handful of people — including district officials — were in attendance. The meeting, broadcast on YouTube, had led to 107 online views as of Thursday morning. The district also advertised the meeting on its Facebook page.

The School Board holds its study sessions in a conference room at the district administration building, at West 21st and Sassafras streets, and holds its monthly voting meetings in the auditorium at East Middle School, at East Sixth Street and East Avenue. The study sessions and monthly meetings typically attract members of the public.

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"If you are here and wish to speak as a citizen, you can come to the podium," School Board President Lori Pickens said at the start of Wednesday's study session.

Pickens waited for 15 seconds for a response.

No one walked up to the podium.

These are the security upgrades that Erie schools Superintendent Brian Polito is pursuing in light of the Erie School Board's consent during an executive session on April 6. Polito said the state Department of Education is allowing the district to pay for the upgrades using pandemic aid.

Contact Ed Palattella at epalattella@timesnews.com. Follow him on Twitter @ETNpalattella.