The majority of Fairfax County parents support installing surveillance cameras in their students’ high school cafeterias and other areas of campus, hoping to enhance school safety and discourage food fights. The Fairfax County School Board is set to weigh a policy change Monday that would allow — but not require — its 27 high school principals to stick the cameras in “hot spots” around school buildings, an idea that was proposed by the system’s own principals.
“During lunchtime, in our common spaces, and in passing up and down our hallways, large numbers of students are under minimum supervision. … Students report to us that drug transactions occur in our crowded cafeteria spaces because of the anonymity provided by large crowds,” the county’s High School Principals Association wrote in a memo to the board earlier this fall.
Last spring, food fights just weeks apart at Robert E. Lee High School and Centreville High School wrecked school cafeterias and, at Centreville, warranted a 911 call. School officials investigated, but most of the instigators were never caught.
The school board took up the issue in September, and wants to figure out where it stands, with the community and financially, before it votes on the policy change next month.
At meetings convened by their principals, 80 percent of high school parent-teacher associations said they supported surveillance cameras in the schools (68 percent) or took no position (12 percent).
“I imagine they feel that it would increase the safety and security of their students in our schools, and if there is an incident, whether it’s bullying or theft or a food fight, and someone gets knocked to the floor and injured or trampled, the cameras would be there to assist accountability,” said Jim Raney, an at-large school board member.
Raney and Tina Hone, also an at-large representative, will lead Monday’s work session. They will review a report from the parent meetings, at which parents said their top reasons for the cameras were increasing safety, deterring crime and fights, and providing security after school.
Fairfax and Arlington counties have the only school systems in the Washington area that do not allow in-school surveillance cameras.
Not all parents are convinced, however: The parent groups at Langley High School and Annandale High School voted against the cameras.
“I don’t feel like Langley as an overall high school has a lot of violence, and I think it’s infringing on the rights of students,” said Debora Smith, a Langley parent.
While the policy change would not force principals to install cameras, Smith worried that principal turnover could bring an unwanted situation. “If the procedure’s been approved by the county, the principal doesn’t need parental permission to move forward with it,” she said.
