The School Board unanimously approved the use of video and audio cameras on school buses, after a searching discussion in which skeptics and supporters invoked everyone from Thomas Jefferson to Big Brother to make their points.

At the baord’s Tuesday, Oct. 14, meeting, Superintendent Tim Mayes said the recordings would be consulted by administrators only if there was an incident on a bus, such as a fight, that called for disciplinary action. Even then, however, he said administrators would first interview students and the bus driver to find out what happened, turning to the tapes if there were conflicting or unclear accounts of the incident.

“Any tool that we have at our disposal to be able to keep order on a school bus and to be able to watch that, I think, is extremely helpful,” said School Board member Bob Donahue.

The district now rotates five cameras among its 38 buses. It has had video cameras in the buses for more than 10 years, said Mayes. The district is planning to replace its aging cameras with new ones that have audio capability.

“At the end of the day, for me, it largely comes down to safety,” said Don Graff. “In my mind that’s paramount concern that we ought to have and I err on the side of safety, you know, more than anything.”

Terry Wolf, the vice chairman, said she is uncomfortable with cameras anywhere, including the ones broadcasting the meeting over the town cable channel. But, she said, surveillance measures were “unfortunately the reality of the world we live in today.”

“In the real world I want our kids to be safe and a bus driver driving with exuberant children behind him is not the safest scenario in the world,” added Cindy Chagnon.

The policy the board approved, however, also permits video cameras, without audio, on school property, except restrooms, locker rooms and other similar areas. The Police Department is seeking a grant for surveillance cameras for school grounds, but the school district has said it has no plans to install cameras inside schools. School Board members said it could do so only with their approval.

Big Brother in Bedford? Nevertheless, one parent remains concerned that the new policy does not adequately protect student privacy or check abuses of power by future administrators.

“This policy lacks any accountability and gives the superintendent carte blanche authority to deploy surveillance anywhere and for any reason, without any approval or checks and balances,” said Jonathan Zdziarski, who has three children at Memorial School.

“Every time a surveillance camera is fixed in a location, the students are robbed of just a small piece of their dignity and freedom as individuals,” Zdziarski added. “It is within the School Board’s power to ensure the proper controls are instated to ensure that this will never happen without firm justification.”

But board members countered that the policy has safeguards, pointing out that it mandates the destruction of the recordings after 10 days and states that they will be reviewed only in a disciplinary issue. If video cameras are set up on school grounds or buildings, a warning must be posted for the public, according to the policy.

Zdziarski, however, proposed more stringent safeguards, including a provision that the School Board had to approve the deployment of surveillance at any location, with strings attached on the purpose, duration, and expected results. He said the policy also should outline the circumstances under which surveillance is appropriate.

The School Board incorporated some of his feedback. The board amended the beginning of the policy to make it clear that audio recording was allowed only on school buses. Graff also asked Mayes to elaborate on when surveillance would be needed.

But board members seemed to deny that the privacy of students would be violated.

Chagnon said the audio recording would not be the same as hi-tech cameras people might see on a show such as “Crime Scene Investigation.” At the most, she said, the cameras might pick up yelling among students or an argument with the bus driver.

“I don’t think this in any way, shape or form is going to pick up the kids sitting quietly having a conversation in the seats,” Chagnon said. “That’s not the purpose of this whatsoever.” Given that the cameras now are in only a few buses, board Chairman David Sacks said the situation was “about as far from ‘Big Brother’ as you can get.”

But Zdziarski warned that small violations of privacy could lead to bigger ones. The United Kingdom “has one camera for every 14 people,” he said. “It got that way because nobody put a leash on it when it was this size.”

Donahue responded that the School Board would ensure that administrators did not overstep their bounds. He said such oversight was beyond what could be written down in a policy.

“We’re not Thomas Jefferson and James Madison,” he said. “We don’t have that, you know, incredible foresight to be able to do that. We can write good policies that protect and represent what the parents want today and I think that this policy goes a long way in doing that.”

Donahue added, “There’s not going to be a rogue superintendent who’s going to be going off in a star chamber with audio tape making arbitrary rules and judgments about kids without having the School Board that is going to be on top of him.”

Risk of lawsuits?
In addition to privacy considerations, Donahue told Mayes he is concerned that the district could risk a lawsuit, especially if it is the first to use audio cameras in school buses.

“I wouldn’t want us to be the district that is the test case for this because I see that as a big cost in litigation and we have to balance that with the benefits of the audio surveillance policy,” Donahue said.

Mayes said other districts in the area use audio and video cameras in their buses such as Hooksett, Amherst, Milford, Mont Vernon, Londonderry and the Contoocook Valley School District. Mayes said the Bedford policy is modeled after a template from the New Hampshire School Boards Association and had been reviewed by the local school district attorney three times.

There is, furthermore, a theoretical risk of litigation in any disciplinary matter, according to Mayes. He told the School Board that the good judgment of administrators, based on an examination of the facts, was key.

What do parents think?
If there was one question the meeting left unanswered it might have been whether the public silence of parents is acquiescence, apathy or lack of awareness. The Oct. 14 meeting was the fourth one on the policy, but Zdziarski said he had not found out about the previous three until it was too late.

Even though the School Board followed proper procedures in posting public notices about its meetings, including a public hearing on Sept. 22, input from the public has been minimal. No parents spoke at the public hearing and Zdziarski was the only one at the Tuesday,Oct. 14, meeting.

Several School Board members insisted that they had not been trying to ramrod the policy through, again drawing attention to the fact that they were holding the fourth meeting on the topic, with the first taking place almost two months ago, on Aug. 25.

Board members did say that other parents with whom they had personally spoken were supporters of the surveillance policy.

“In the conversations I have had with people there has been overwhelming support in the policy, not just a little bit,” Wolf said. “When I have asked about it ... I swear people have almost said ‘Duh’ to me. It is an absolute no-brainer.”