Are There Cameras In Classrooms

In January 2014, sixteen video cameras were delivered to the Washington County Schoolhouse District in Tennessee, ane for each schoolhouse and one for the central function. The district didn't purchase the equipment as part of a school security comeback plan. Washington County, it turned out, had been selected as one of 20 districts across the state to pilot a new program to record classroom interactions and use the clips to assist make up one's mind teacher effectiveness.

The mobile cameras, however, barely made it out of their boxes before the project was suspended indefinitely.

So what happened? A little transparency might have gone a long manner, but it was in brusk supply in Washington Canton. District administrators approved the project without notifying school staff or parents. Curious and persistent educators were able to pry some information out of the commune, just details remained deficient. Questions piled up chop-chop. Who paid for the cameras? What are these videos existence used for specifically? Who would take control over the cameras? Where are these clips beingness stored and who is going to see them?

"In one case we constitute out about the plan to put these cameras in the classrooms, we had major concerns that nosotros brought to the attention of the commune," recalls LaDawn Hudgins, president of the Washington Canton Education Association (WCEA). "So did many parents. A camera was going to record their kids in the classroom and no 1 bothered to tell them."

Whether they are planted in a classroom, scattered throughout the school or both, video cameras provoke wildly polarized reactions. I group envisions a safe and secure school and a happy teaching staff using video to improve practice and excitedly sharing "eureka" moments with their colleagues. The other is horrified at the idea of schools existence transformed into invasive, naught privacy zones, staffed by suspicious educators, intimidated by the judging and unforgiving eye of a video photographic camera in their classroom.

Virtually educators probably sit down somewhere in the middle. While they recognize the role video cameras play in school security, they have serious and valid concerns over privacy and the bear on an excess of surveillance tin can accept on schoolhouse climate. And although teachers tin can benefit from the observation and reflection that a sensible use of cameras can cultivate, the state of affairs gets dicey if clips are used to evaluate performance and cameras are there to merely snoop.

Sarah Dark-brown Wessling, a high schoolhouse English instructor in Johnston, Iowa, and the 2010 National Teacher of the Year, is a keen abet of video's potential to help enrich a instructor's practice.

"I've always used video, but merely as a tool," Wessling explains. "I use information technology to challenge myself and to run across more clearly what is going on in my classroom and how my students are learning."

Whether video cameras are a effective addition to a classroom depends in big part how and why they were brought into the classroom in the first place.

It was the 'how' and 'why' (and the 'who' ) that unnerved educators and parents in Washington County. LaDawn Hudgins agrees that, under the right circumstances, cameras in the classroom tin exist useful, especially for newer teachers, but districts must be more proactive in consulting with educators and parents.

"We wanted more data. We wanted transparency," Hudgins says. "When you hear words like 'uploaded' and 'downloaded," you want to know: Who's uploading it, who's downloading it and for what purpose?"

Video surveillance cameras were a major function of the $2.7 billion schools spent on security systems in 2013. Photograph: Getty Images

Surveillance or Simply Spying?

Video cameras are an inescapable presence in public schools across the country and the vast majority are purchased to bolster schoolhouse security. The installation of interior and exterior cameras, became more than commonplace after the Columbine shooting in 1999, and spiked again later on Sandy Hook in 2012.

While few dispute that some measure of video surveillance are a valuable component of schoolhouse safety plans, Ken Trump, president of National School Safe and Security Services, believes that the rush to install these systems - many of them extremely expensive and sophisticated - often amounts to little more than than a "human knee-jerk reaction."

"Following a high-profile incident similar Sandy Hook, there is always a search to do something 'new' in lodge to respond to the emotional security needs of parents and educators," Trump explains.

High-tech security equipment allows school administrators to point to "something tangible," says Trump, to demonstrate to parents that they take security seriously.

But he cautions that the bigger picture often hasn't been factored into these decisions.

"How much idea has been put it into whether all this equipment meshes with the school climate, culture, and community relations aspects of how schools operate?" Trump asks.

The answer is commonly "not much."

For all their perceived benefits, video cameras come up equipped with vast potential for corruption. Serious privacy concerns that impact students and staff, for example, have to be addressed. The National Education Association believes that education employees must exist guaranteed the rights of privacy - including freedom from sound or video surveillance without the prior written permission of the individual.

One of the few places that isn't wired is the bathroom. You always try to concord a staff coming together in a bathroom?

Consider the Belleville schoolhouse board in Belleville, New Jersey. In the Fall of 2013, it embarked on a breathtakingly clumsy only audacious try when it contracted with Clarity Systems to install $two million worth of state-of-the-fine art video and sound surveillance engineering to monitor virtually every corner of the district's viii schools - including classrooms, hallways, and staff rooms.

"This equipment is unbelievable. The cameras can zoom into what volume y'all're holding or how much money you're paying the cafeteria lady," explains Mike Mignone, a math instructor at Belleville Middle School and president of the Belleville Education Association. "And the sound capabilities can option up any chat y'all have with a colleague. Staff were walking around schoolhouse like zombies, afraid to say or do anything!"

Commune officials insisted the equipment was installed to merely improve educatee rubber, but staff and parents didn't buy it. The cameras were but another salvo, educators insisted, from a school board and superintendent bent on intimidation, which was on full-display when they filed trumped up tenure charges against Mignone later he denounced the district's decision. Mike Mignone speaks out against the purchase of a $2 million video and audio surveillance system at a Belleville school board meeting in April 2014. Photo: NJEA

Mike Mignone speaks out against the purchase of a $2 million video and audio surveillance organization at a Belleville school board meeting in April 2014. Photo: NJEA

"They did this considering they don't want staff to talk to each other. They don't want united states of america to unite, It'due south one thing to be seen at all times. But they tin can hear united states as well. Talk about invasive," says Phil Lensi, a library media specialist at Belleville High School. "One of the few places that isn't wired is the bathroom. Y'all ever try to agree a staff coming together in a bathroom?"

In addition, for a cash-strapped district similar Belleville, the buy was fifty-fifty more than bizarre. Last April, Belleville staff and parents railed confronting the lath's determination to invest in the equipment when other needs were being ignored.

"No one cares more about the wellness and well-existence of our students than us," Mignone told board members, "but the money could take been spent on tools and technology that actually improve our students' education."

Choice and Trust First, Then Cameras

The climate surrounding the cameras in the classroom project in Washington County, TN - while unquestionably less toxic than the fiasco in Belleville - still prevented any flow of communication from the district to parents and schoolhouse staff.

Merely an investigation by the Schoolhouse Matters weblog and Washington County educators revealed, among other things, who funded the cameras (the Gates Foundation), their purpose (to produce observational clips for teacher evaluations), where the video clips would be stored (in Utah by the thereNow projection), how much control teachers would take over the cameras (none), and whether parents were notified that their children would be videotaped (no).

Cameras in the classroom volition non lead to the comeback of teaching, peculiarly if they are used to evaluate teachers using a system that is basically flawed from the commencement

"The commune merely didn't think this through properly," says Janice Allen, an elementary school teacher and vice-president of the Washington Canton Teaching Association. "At that place were still a lot of unanswered questions" - including whether the video was going to be used in enquiry to support dubious methods of teacher evaluation.

"I guess we won't find out," Allen adds. "Because we quashed the whole thing - at least for at present."

The purpose of the initiative clearly was non to aid teachers improve their practice, which is 1 of the benefits - theoretically at to the lowest degree - of using video as an observational tool.

Addressing the pitfalls of cameras in the classroom, Jack Hassard, a erstwhile high schoolhouse instructor, current professor at Georgia State University and education blogger, wrote in 2011: "Video can exist an effective tool for teachers only if they are in control of how, when, and why video technology is used in their classroom ... Cameras in the classroom will not pb to the improvement of instruction, particularly if they are used to evaluate teachers using a system that is basically flawed from the beginning... Using video to evaluate teacher performance is overly behaviorist, and reduces teaching to a set of skills that some trained observer looks for when viewing a video tape."

Sarah Dark-brown Wessling, who is also the Instructor Laureate for the Teaching Channel, urges educators non to reflexively label cameras as "surveillance," but agrees that for video to be a potentially transformative tool, three conditions must be met: choice, trust, and a conspicuously stated purpose.

Sarah Brown Wessling Photo: Teaching Channel Sarah Brown Wessling Photo: Instruction Channel

"My experiences started when I was a educatee teacher," she recalls. "You remember thosebig VCR cameras? I would use those to film me so I could meet what was really going on with my teaching. So it'southward been office of my practice for as long as I can recall. But information technology has always been my selection and information technology all the same is."

In addition, educators must too be able to trust that the person who is watching the clips is knowledgable, fair, observant, and non judgmental.

"The great thing about the camera is that it catches everything that is going on. The bad thing about the photographic camera is that it catches everything that is going on," Wessling warns. "It's no wonder that teachers can feel very, very vulnerable in that situation."

And the sole purpose of putting cameras in the classroom should exist to help teachers get amend.

"Without those three preconditions, cameras can slip into an evaluative role that is about catching yous doing something wrong, rather than beingness a tool to help united states of america see more clearly, aid usa interact with colleagues and help terminate the isolation that can hold some teachers back," Wessling explains.

Unfortunately, when funding for new video equipment is dangled in front of them, many districts will happily scoop it up. Option, trust, and purpose gets lost in the transaction and the equipment is then reserved exclusively for surveillance or evaluation, not to foster reflection and professional growth. Too often, the placement of a camera in a classroom is something that is done to educators, not by them.

"Video shouldn't be well-nigh discovering who is a 'good' or 'bad' instructor," Wessling says. "It should exist well-nigh the instructor being able to look at a clip and saying: 'OK, here is what happened in this lesson, and this is how I'yard going to deconstruct it, then that I can acquire how to become better tomorrow.'"