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After years of railing with little success against tardy students,
vandalism, and theft, administrators at Permian High School last
year began requiring students to wear bar-coded identification
badges. When the bell rings at the Odessa, Texas, school, teachers
shut their classroom doors and all latecomers report to the main
office. A staff member scans the badges into a computer that tracks
each student's record of being tardy, then distributes individual
printouts that serve as admittance slips to class. A visitor or
student who forgets a badge pays $1 for a temporary one, which
bears a name, identification number, and sticker that dissolves
after 24 hours to reveal the word "expired."
The $3,200 system from Diamond Business Services, along with
the recent addition of 17 exterior surveillance cameras, appears
to be paying off. There were 27 percent fewer tardies last school
year. The number of vandalism cases solved doubled to 32. Thefts
fell by 65 percent. "We've been really pleased with the results,
especially since we have such a spread-out campus," Principal
Brian Rosson says of the quarter-mile stretch. "There are consequences
now."
Advocates of high-tech security measures embrace such technology
as necessary and, in some cases, overdue. They point to the Columbine
High School massacre as proof. Critics contend school systems
can go overboard, making students feel less safe than before.
But both believe something must be done to stop school violence
and crime.
"Unfortunately, schools will never be the same because of [Columbine],"
says Anthony Annunziato, principal at Hauppage High School on
New York's Long Island. The 3,500-student Hauppage school district
sports an impressive collection of cameras, tracking devices,
and other gadgets for its size. "We've ended up giving up some
freedoms we were taking for granted."
High-tech devices
Simply opening a door and walking to class is now a far different
experience at some schools. Students at a Florida charter school
check in by entering a personal four-digit identification code
into an electronic black box, then placing a finger on a sensor
pad that recognizes their fingerprint. Similar devices at a New
Mexico high school allow access to students whose handprints match
templates in a computer database. And special keys to an elementary
school in Connecticut are programmed to work only when used by
one person at particular times during the day.
But what might seem an attractive novelty to adults can be a
hard sell to students, as was the case with Permian's ID system.
"Most people didn't like it and thought it was kind of dumb,"
says Ashley Maney, who graduated in June. "But it helped a lot.
Everybody knew who everybody else was. It just felt like we were
in a safer place."
To help make schools safer, the Federal Bureau of Investigation
is developing a profile of school shooters, just as the agency
does with terrorists and serial killers. Meanwhile, more than
20 schools nationwide are testing a computer program called Mosaic
2000 in hopes of identifying violent kids before they strike.
All of this comes even though the number of school-related violent
deaths dropped 40 percent from 1997 to 1999, according to the
U.S. Department of Education. The reason? No one wants to be the
next Columbine.
High-tech results
Many of the security measures schools consider cutting-edge
have been used for years in the corporate world. But companies
specializing in biometrics, a technology that uses physical characteristics
to identify people, are still working to bring some of the more
elaborate tools to cash-strapped districts. "It's usually a budget
issue," says Ken Trump, president and CFO of the Ohio-based National
School Safety and Security Services. "Schools on that end of things
are kind of behind the times."
So even though more schools than ever before are upgrading security
systems, few are investing in anything more elaborate than intercoms,
metal detectors, and surveillance cameras. The ones that have
are quick to praise the technology for helping them spend less
time solving problems and more time teaching students.
Case in point: There's been a "significant" decline in the number
of Hauppage High School students who fight or leave the closed
campus since the 1,000-student school installed four outdoor cameras
that can zoom in on a scene 2,000 feet away, according to Annunziato.
In one incident last school year, the cameras caught a student
just off school grounds drinking alcohol. A fiber-optic feature
called remote video surveillance lets security personnel tap into
the system from another location, while administrators use 13-inch
televisions on their desks to view the video.
The Hauppage district is also testing a type of computer technology
that tracks its security staff. Say, for instance, a nearby resident
reports suspicious activity on campus after school hours and calls
for a security check. A security officer circles the grounds,
finds nothing unusual, and documents the time spent looking. The
next morning, the resident complains that no one responded to
the call. No worries: A new technology from Motorola called Pagetrack
2000, installed in the officer's vehicle, electronically verifies
the officer's time and position every time the driver's door opens.
Supervision or
snoopervision?
Taken a few steps further, the technology can do more than hold
school workers accountable. The movements of students can be tracked
as well. Though no school has signed on, the technology exists
to monitor every student's step while on school grounds, using
data programmed into an identification badge.
"The question is, how far do you want to go with this?" asks
Ronald D. Stephens, executive director of the National School
Safety Center in Westlake Village, Calif. "There's a fine line
between appropriate supervision and snoopervision. It's going
to take a lot of thought and care to strike a balance between
improving management and control and preserving dignity, freedom,
and privacy."
And it's going to take plenty of patience to get the kinks out
of souped-up security systems. When Coral Springs Charter School
in Florida opened last school year, its students were among the
first in the state required to register their fingerprints. But
a sensor pad at the school's entrance -- designed to approve access
for every print it recognizes -- regularly malfunctioned from
the first days of school through final exams.
"I stopped using it because it could never find my name," says
Tina Giustino, who spent her freshman year at the school. "They
told me that if it didn't work, I should go in a room and have
my fingerprint scanned again. But I never did. I just always walked
right in."
Other students claim it does nothing to stop people from bringing
weapons inside. Administrators -- admitting the system from Access
Controls Inc. needs to be tweaked but declining to elaborate on
its effectiveness -- say they expect fewer defects this fall.
Computer mapping and hostage
crises
In central California, Upland High School this summer tested
some of the latest security gadgets by having a SWAT team converge
on its two-story science building during a staged hostage crisis.
No students were in the building during the exercise.
Using a sophisticated computer mapping system, police moved
quickly through the building with a sense of familiarity, referring
often to computerized, multidimensional images of the building's
layout to find their way. Experts in the mapping field expect
that school districts will be able to download such programs off
the Internet by the end of the year.
Upland officials defend the recent exercise, saying they need
to be prepared for the worst. "As adults, we're the ones responsible
for the safety of students and staff, and our role is to make
sure we do all kinds of things," says Pete Watson, superintendent
of the Upland Unified School District. "[But] I'm not sure it's
necessary for the kids to know about some of them. Too much information
can accelerate concerns."
Nevertheless, the SWAT exercise troubles Jason Ziedenberg, a
senior analyst with the Washington-based Justice Policy Institute
who calls Upland's drill the "most extreme" example of a district
overstepping its boundaries. He cites a recent University of Maryland
study showing that even traditional metal detectors and locker
searches make students feel less safe, not safer, and rarely reduce
crime.
Indeed, most school officials -- regardless of their stance
on high-tech security -- agree that technology alone can't solve
problems. "Don't let anybody ever try to tell you a security system
can do it all," insists Niagara Falls High School Principal Robert
DiFrancesco. The New York school has 60 surveillance cameras and
teachers swipe special cards to enter employee-only areas.
Says DiFrancesco: "A good security system is a backup. Good
counseling and good intervention come first."
Robin L. Flanigan is a freelance writer in Rochester,
N.Y.
SELECTED VENDORS
Here is a partial list of nonprofit organizations and for-profit
companies that produce school security technologies or offer advice
on how to use technology to protect your schools:
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