Schools zoom in on student safety

Kids, don’t even think about scribbling on that locker or smashing that Snickers bar into the carpet – Big Brother is watching.

Students at Lakeland and Timberlake high schools will return in September to security cameras in hallways and entrances and outside the buildings. The Project CDA (Creating Dropout Alternatives) school added cameras this summer, and Lake City and Coeur d’Alene high schools more than doubled their surveillance stock.

More than 60 cameras now pan inside and outside Coeur d’Alene High, covering nearly every inch of the building except classrooms and bathrooms.

Twenty will be installed at Lakeland High School in Rathdrum by the start of school, with the capability of adding 12 more, Principal Conrad Underdahl said.

“We’ve been looking into it for the last couple of years,” Underdahl said. “We haven’t really had anything that precipitates any major changes in our policy, but it’s a preventative measure.”

School security cameras are quickly becoming the norm as tragedies around the country raise awareness about school safety. School staff say the cameras help them monitor who’s coming and going, and make it easier to solve student discipline issues more efficiently.

The Idaho Department of Education received $150,000 in state money this year to study school safety. The agency will examine everything from communication plans to security cameras to see how to update all school security systems, spokeswoman Melissa McGrath said.

Spokane Public Schools will complete a $2.5 million security imitative this December that includes security cameras at all 50 schools, as well as keyless entry systems and new alarms, spokeswoman Terren Roloff said.

Central Valley and Post Falls high schools had cameras installed when they were built.

Coeur d’Alene High had its first cameras installed in a remodel in 2001. Head custodian Mel Barker said this summer’s addition will help the school. He’s never seen problems with vandalism or fights, and the cameras have likely helped keep it that way, he said.

“I think it makes the kids think twice,” he said. “It’s just keeping them honest.”

Underdahl said the cameras were atop his staff’s priority list. “We want to make sure we know who’s on our campus. To be able to monitor that through the camera will be real effective.”

A monitor will be set up in the vice principal’s office, and the cameras will be visible via a computer log-in.

School resource officers at Lake City and Coeur d’Alene monitor the cameras during school hours.

Lakeland and Timberlake’s camera systems cost about $9,400 each. Lake City, Project CDA and Coeur d’Alene additions this summer were $136,000.

The systems were also Coeur d’Alene High’s top priority, Principal Randy Russell said.

“With everything going on across the nation, you could never do enough to be totally 100 percent safe,” he said. “It’s just that extra assistance, again, in terms of being proactive.”

The additions this summer bring more quality cameras to the school. A new camera focused on the bus depot and senior class parking lot can zoom in on car license plates and stickers. Cameras in the gymnasium allow spirit assemblies – ripe for student chaos – to be taped.

“If you heard something that happened, you can go back and find out who all was involved and who all was there,” Russell said. “It’s helped us a number of times,” he said.

Last year, School Resource Officer Scott TenEyck quickly caught two students who brawled in a hallway after spotting the fight live on camera, Russell said. He zoomed in the camera, identified the students and caught them before they could leave school grounds, Russell said.

Baker called the surveillance system “a sign of the times.” Russell predicted schools will eventually move to a card-only entry system.

In the meantime, the cameras will do a fine job of reminding kids to behave, he said.

“It will be well advertised to the students,” Russell said.