Security Cameras at Pioneer

I attended the informational meeting about security cameras at Pioneer High School last night. ('Cause I don't have anything better to do on a cold, blustery Monday night during the holiday season.)

Before attending, I was actually pro-cameras. I really didn't feel that our children should have an expectation of privacy in the hallways and parking lots of the school when their safety is at stake. But, based on the presentation by administrators at the meeting, safety isn't really the issue. Crime incidents at the school are primarily property theft related.

School officials feel that cameras will help successfully "close" criminal incidents, as well as allow intervention in fights or trouble before they actually happen and thus lead to a safer school. Yet they didn't produce any data to back up these assertions - they didn't even come prepared with numbers analyzing Huron's usage of cameras for the last six months, let alone comparable data from schools in Michigan that have used video surveillance for a longer period of time. And if there's one thing I can't stand (actually, there are a lot of things I can't stand...), it's when someone expects people to make a decision based upon generalizations without the data to back them up. It's sloppy, I don't like it in business meetings, and I certainly don't like it when civil liberties are at stake.

I was so irritated that I fired off an email to Superintendent Robertson, Principal White, the school board, and some of my fellow lefties in the ACLU. Here it is...

"I am the mother of a 9th grader at Pioneer and I attended last evening’s information meeting in the Little Theater at school. I try to be an informed and responsible parent whose eyes are wide-open to the realities of our world today. And it is soul wrenching to me that a couple times each year my daughter and I have to review her “emergency exit, phones don’t work” strategy.

Going into the informational meeting, I had the opinion that security cameras SHOULD be installed at the school. However, after weighing the information presented last night, as well as assessing other data and opinions, I have changed my mind. Not the intended effect, I’d imagine.

Principal White did an excellent job of outlining how video surveillance would be simply one tool in a menu of methods for achieving a safe environment at Pioneer. All present seemed to agree that “human” measures are best, and I was not aware that the school district already employs assistants whose responsibilities sound very similar to that of private security, simply without the uniforms.

That said, administrators do not appear to have historical data that indicates “non-human measures, ” i.e. security cameras , would decrease the number of criminal incidents. If such data from comparable schools (Plymouth Canton for instance) were available I assume it would have been presented. However, I do find it reasonable that video surveillance can assist in the resolution of crimes, and I’m surprised such information was not compiled and distributed last night.

As the daughter of a principal, I can imagine what it’s like for Principal White and the other administrators to be on the receiving end of phone calls from the parents of children who have had items stolen. And I understand that the hours spent on learning the whole story of an incident could be time better spent. But our students should not sacrifice their right to privacy during school hours` for the sake of solving primarily property crimes more easily.

Property crimes aside, Principal White and Officer Foster feel that monitoring video will help the assistants anticipate trouble and send staff to intervene in potentially volatile situations. Video surveillance did not prevent the mall shooting in Omaha, nor other recent high-profile incidents. And while I realize that incidents that WERE prevented by video surveillance don’t produce headlines, again I would assume that if there were data to support this it would have been presented.

One of my primary concerns is the access to the video files, and this was not addressed at all last evening. How long would the files be stored? Who would have access to them? How would they be erased? In light of recent news regarding our government’s “mishandling” of videotapes, my small faith in the ability of government institutions to deal in a forthright manner with evidence and documents has been reduced to an infinitely small level. Installing the cameras as administration essentially says “trust us” is simply not acceptable.

Finally, Pioneer is open 20 hours a day and to me that is the most cogent point made all evening. As a compromise, I would suggest that cameras be installed but only turned on “after hours.” This would address several concerns. Children are required to attend school, and thus don’t have a choice regarding whether or not to submit to video surveillance if the cameras are on during the day. After hours activities are a choice – just as I can choose to not shop at the mall if I object to security cameras, children AND adults can choose to not attend after hours activities at Pioneer. Also, it seems that some of the most disturbing thefts – the new mixing board, lockers cut open with a bolt cutter, car thefts– have occurred after hours. Video surveillance would assist in solving these crimes while impacting the fewest number of people. My daughter and I discussed this compromise over breakfast this morning, and she seemed to find it reasonable, “Yeah, that would help catch the kids from Huron who trash our cars after games,” she said. (all issues devolve to the cross-town rivalry, it seems) Principal White told the audience that the teaching staff overwhelmingly support the use of cameras, and I would suggest that an “after hours” compromise would address their concerns as well. Intellectually I know that surveillance cameras won’t make me safer in the parking lot or an isolated hallway at night, I would find it psychologically comforting.

In the wake of the Omaha mall shooting, this excerpt from an Associated Press article is particularly relevant:

'Reed Nyffeler, director of sales and marketing at Omaha-based Signal 88 Security, said his firm had received dozens of calls from local stores since Wednesday inquiring about stepped-up security measures. The holiday season is especially challenging for mall security because of the throngs of shoppers, making it difficult for employees and guards to keep track of potentially suspicious people, he said.'

During the day, the congested hallways of Pioneer are even worse than a crowded mall –security surveillance just won’t do that much good, and it impinges on the right to privacy of our children and sets a bad example. But in the evening, when school staff are not present and the district cannot afford to have the preferred “human” presence of the assistants, I think security cameras are a viable solution (though video file storage and access issues would still require clarification).

Both Principal White and Officer Foster stressed that the Ann Arbor School District has always been a leader. I would suggest that in this case, we lead by NOT blithely accepting 24/7 surveillance cameras in our high schools as have other districts. The erosion of our children’s constitutional rights for the sake of solving a property crime more easily or a mistaken sense of security should not be the “new normal,” at least not here in Ann Arbor. We can do better than that, and we can show how civil liberties and “law and order” contingents can reach an effective compromise."