More Big Brother -- Video Surveillance at Madison Schools

Also on the agenda for the Monday meeting of the Madison Central School Board is item #22: "Second reading and adoption of Video Surveillance policy ECA and Video Surveillance ECA-R." File ECA is the general authorization and intent statement; File ECA-R lays out the who's, what's, where's, when's, and why's.

We should note first that proposed policy ECA-R states, "Video recordings may be used as a basis for student or employee disciplinary action." The district thus makes clear that it is snoopervising not just the kids but the adults -- the professionals -- in the building as well. Evidently, even after earning college degrees (often graduate degrees), teachers can still count on their employers reserving the right to record their every move at work.

Among the interesting clauses of the proposed policy, see the more general policy ECA: "The implemented surveillance system should be designed and operated so that the privacy intrusion it creates is no greater than necessary to achieve the system’s goals." There's a quantification I'm eager to hear: How many units of privacy are lost by teachers, students, and visitors being recorded throughout their time in our school buildings? How do we convert units of privacy into units of achieved security goals? How much is "necessary" to achieve the system's goals? If an administrator declares, "We will do whatever it takes to make sure our kids are safe" (a declaration that sounds good on face), doesn't that mean there is no limit to the privacy intrusion this policy will allow? We should protect our students and teachers, but when we start writing rules, we need to make sure the words we use actually mean something. The district's line about keeping privacy intrusions "no greater than necessary" doesn't seem to offer any definable, objective limit to the powers of the school in this matter.

Even if we have trouble quantifying and comparing privacy and security, what about a more direct comparison: Let's identify the behaviors the school wants to reduce with video surveillance. Vandalism jumps out as one obvious target. How much does vandalism cost the school each year? How much will video surveillance cost (cameras, recording equipment, monitors, software, training, system upgrades)? How many vandals will cameras stop? Will we get our money's worth? Dakota Today's Douglas Wiken discusses such a cost-benefit analysis applied to the use of surveillance cameras to stop "hunters" from shooting road signs; perhaps the school board will provide a similar analysis in its discussion Monday night.

Policy ECA-R offers some guidance as to how the school will use the surveillance video. Under Use, the policy informs us that "Video surveillance is not to be ordinarily used in locations where appropriate confidential or private activities/functions are routinely carried out (e.g., bathrooms, private conference/meeting rooms)." Hmm... I've heard some folks argue that everything that happens on school grounds is subject to confidentiality protections under the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act and the Professional Code of Ethics. An ambitious lawyer could argue that, under proposed policy as worded, the school couldn't authorize video surveillance anywhere on campus.

There are a number of good protections in the policy. No public dissemination of the videos, all viewing requests in writing, all video erased after two weeks unless related to "a long-term suspension, a student injury, or... a prospect of a legal claim against the District." Oops, one possible slip, though: the policy also permits an exception to the two-week erasure requirement "at the request of the school principal," with no laying out of standards for justifying such a request. Please read no particular personal attack here, but one could read this exception as giving room for a lecherous male principal to save recordings of, for example, girls in short skirts walking down the hall. Maybe we ought to tighten up that exception. (That's what happens when you create more policies: your rules have to cover everything.)

The school appears to be making an effort to keep a tight rein on the use of the video surveillance. But even the best surveillance policy still allows surveillance, which sends to kids two messages that run counter to good educational philosophy:

1. We don't trust you. Forget presumption of innocence.
   
2. You should behave, not because it's the right thing, but because someone is watching you.
   

I won't pretend this is a black-and-white issue. As a teacher, I've engaged in plenty of my own surveillance policies based on mistrust of miscreants among the student body. Teachers need to watch their kids in school, just like parents need to watch their kids. But there's a difference between caring adults keeping a watchful eye on children and a public agency turning everyone's daily actions into video documents that can and will be used against them. Even if thorough discussion leads us to the conclusion that video cameras in our schools are a necessary evil, we should be very cautious in how much of our privacy we sacrifice in our never-ending (and ultimately futile) quest for complete security.