Is there a need for CCTV in schools

Doom

I think so, why not. I was talking to my wife tonight and she had to drop into our daughters class, the teacher was roaring the place down, the kids were as white as ghosts she said.
Two years ago our daughter told us the teacher slapped her, we approached the school and immediately a wall went up, major support for the teacher, things like"she never" " she is teaching 20 yrs and would never do that" my daughter never lied even to this day, and it took her a week to approach us.
I also had a bad experience when I was young, a teacher beat me in 6th class in a very inappropriate way, this was the late 80s and beatings where banned.
I think anyone involved in child care/ education should be CC TV monitored.
Opinions anyone?

deisemum

Yes, definitely. There are a lot of teachers that spend their days roaring and shouting at pupils as well as those that physically assault them or manhandle them and like you said they close ranks and protect each other.

Doom

deisemum wrote: »

Yes, definitely. There are a lot of teachers that spend their days roaring and shouting at pupils as well as those that physically assault them or manhandle them and like you said they close ranks and protect each other.

That's it exactly, they closed ranks to protect each other.

tvnutz

Doom wrote: »

That's it exactly, they closed ranks to protect each other.

Is this primary or secondary, there is plenty of CCTV in hallways,no need in classrooms. If a teacher assaulted a kid it would be taken seriously,did this happen in front of the class or other people? Any complaints I have ever seen have been taken with utmost seriousness, no closed ranks as you suggest.

Doom

tvnutz wrote: »

Is this primary or secondary, there is plenty of CCTV in hallways,no need in classrooms. If a teacher assaulted a kid it would be taken seriously,did this happen in front of the class or other people? Any complaints I have ever seen have been taken with utmost seriousness, no closed ranks as you suggest.

Primary and because of the age of the students, the need CC TV would be best, they're so young they cannot defend themselves, btw my daughter was in junior infants when this happened

DublinArnie

My school has CCTVs outside the school and on all the hallways. There's no CCTV in classrooms though, not of any i'm aware of.

Jogathon

Two years ago when we had the whole school in for singing practice a teacher gave out to a a second class boy by tapping him on the shoulder as we were all in the middle of a song and he was chatting. He went home and said that she slapped him. The parents came in, very calm but very threatening, saying that we were all lying to cover for her. The teacher was completely distraught, as anyone accused of that would be. The result of this, none of us will ever take anyone from that family for one-on-one help as how can you trust them, children and parents. The child lied and was believed. And they believed their child over the five teachers and two sna's in the hall at the time.

A teacher's reputation is built on sand so we guard it.

Also, to install cctv would mean that heating the school would be forgotten for a year. Budgets are very tight.

nesf

Jogathon wrote: »

Two years ago when we had the whole school in for singing practice a teacher gave out to a a second class boy by tapping him on the shoulder as we were all in the middle of a song and he was chatting. He went home and said that she slapped him. The parents came in, very calm but very threatening, saying that we were all lying to cover for her. The teacher was completely distraught, as anyone accused of that would be. The result of this, none of us will ever take anyone from that family for one-on-one help as how can you trust them, children and parents. The child lied and was believed. And they believed their child over the five teachers and two sna's in the hall at the time.

That's an argument for CCTV rather than against it. It protects both sides.

gctest50

Jogathon wrote: »

A teacher's reputation is built on sand so we guard it.

Jogathon wrote: »

And they believed their child over the five teachers and two sna's in the hall at the time.

How far would you go to guard it ?

Was it a tap ? Was it a bit of a tap ? Was it more than a tap ? and so on and so forth


So both "sides" would benefit from cctv ?

Moonbeam

Think of the costs involved ,schools can barely afford heating never mind cctv in every classroom.
I had 2 awful bullies of teachers in primary school the one in my Dublin school was really bad and taught in the school for years. A cctv camera would have got her fired if it recorded sound but probably not video.

Doom

Moonbeam wrote: »

Think of the costs involved ,schools can barely afford heating never mind cctv in every classroom.
I had 2 awful bullies of teachers in primary school the one in my Dublin school was really bad and taught in the school for years. A cctv camera would have got her fired if it recorded sound but probably not video.

That's a crap argument money should never be a issue for child safety.

gctest50

Moonbeam wrote: »

Think of the costs involved ,schools can barely afford heating never mind cctv in every classroom.
I had 2 awful bullies of teachers in primary school the one in my Dublin school was really bad and taught in the school for years. A cctv camera would have got her fired if it recorded sound but probably not video.

Well the one good thing is tech is getting cheaper all the time

- just stop and think of the power of a smartphone
- wasn't that long ago when you couldn't buy a computer for reasonable money that would be near one of them
( see attached pic - total scrap)

Moonbeam

This is Ireland that we are living in money should not be an issue in the health service or education but it is.

I don't think we need CCTV in every classroom but I do think if there are a lot of complaints against a teacher that it should definitely be considered.

Moonbeam

gctest50 wrote: »

Well the one good thing is tech is getting cheaper all the time

- just stop and think of the power of a smartphone
- wasn't that long ago when you couldn't buy a computer for reasonable money that would be near one of them
( see attached pic - total scrap)

I really do not think that is as relevant in Ireland as in China.

Esoteric_

tvnutz wrote: »

Is this primary or secondary, there is plenty of CCTV in hallways,no need in classrooms. If a teacher assaulted a kid it would be taken seriously,did this happen in front of the class or other people? Any complaints I have ever seen have been taken with utmost seriousness, no closed ranks as you suggest.

Speaking from personal experience, ranks definitely DO close in cases of assault.

When I was in Junior Infants (back in 1993-1994), the teacher there beat myself and the other children. My first memory of school is of sobbing my heart out on the schoolbus home, after she smacked me across the hands and arms with a steel ruler. :mad:

That was the first and last time she left physical marks on me. My mother saw them, and when I told her what happened, she went down to the school. The school principal denied it. The teacher denied it. My mother spoke to other parents, who spoke to my classmates, who all admitted that she had been hitting them, too (obviously I don't remember all of this, this is what my mum told me when I was a teenager).

My mum went back down to the school, and confronted the teacher. The teacher than assaulted MY MOTHER. She slapped her across the chest. I had apparently been having nightmares and wetting the bed ever since starting Junior Infants, which my mother obviously found out was due to me being hit by the teacher. She ripped into my teacher for hitting both myself and my mother, and told the teacher exactly how it had affected me. She also informed the teacher that I was being removed from the school with immediate effect. The teacher then THREW five pounds at her, and told her to 'let Esoteric_ get something nice to calm herself down.'


SO yeah, teachers DO close ranks from what I've personally experienced. My seecondary school had CCTV and I think it's a great idea. It provides more of a safety net for students, parents AND teachers.

silentrust

nesf wrote: »

That's an argument for CCTV rather than against it. It protects both sides.

Exactly so. I was a teacher and witnessed a colleague patting a girl on the shoulder who then tried to claim she was groped.

They flat out told me they thought I was lying in backing him up, as we were both trainee teachers, both men etc. Eventually the matter was dropped but CCTV would have exonerated him straight away.

clairefontaine

Yes. When I was in primary a girl got sexually assaulted in the bathroom. A man walked into the school and hid out in the bathroom until he had an opportunity to molest a child.

If there were cctv the man could have been identified and a better chance of catching him would have been had.

dangerus06

wow there some awfull stories about teachers ,if my daughters teacher slapped her i slap her with a baseball bat ,when i was in school junior infants i asked the teacher could i use the toilet she would not let me till break time so you can imagine what happened ,as a punishment the teacher keep me in the classroom at lunchtime no food ,dont have a lot of time for teachers

*mod note*
posts advocating violence will not be tolerated.

silentrust

dangerus06 wrote: »

wow there some awfull stories about teachers ,if my daughters teacher slapped her i slap her with a baseball bat ,when i was in school junior infants i asked the teacher could i use the toilet she would not let me till break time so you can imagine what happened ,as a punishment the teacher keep me in the classroom at lunchtime no food ,dont have a lot of time for teachers

You're right they are a funny lot, the reason I left quite early on.

This isn't directly relevant to the topic so I will be brief!

Teachers seem to broadly divided into two camps. Those with a genuine desire to pass on their knowledge to the next generation and those who do it as it's unlikely they could do much else due to their poor work experience and lack of social skills.

Anyone who has been to school will know there are a good deal too many of the latter - people who are incapable of stimulating any passion for their subject and who actually are very bad at dealing with people. When challenged their usual response is to patronizingly talk over objections (even by adults!) or claim they are being persecuted and become angry or upset.

They feel they exist in a special category and that although their level of work is so poor, this isn't their fault but that of the unruly, unintelligent children. Of course when their students do pass exams they're not ashamed to try to use this to defend their reputation.

Bottom line is that there are far too many teachers who not only are actually very bad at teaching but if they didn't have a cosy government job they would probably be on the dole as they can't relate well to people.

Probably the reason these people haven't been shown the door is due to low numbers of people entering the profession.

nesf

silentrust wrote: »

Probably the reason these people haven't been shown the door is due to low numbers of people entering the profession.

It's more like removing teachers on performance grounds is near impossible. Christ, we had a teacher in 3rd/4th class that the principle and other teachers couldn't remove (he used to make sexually explicit comments in front of us and similar, a real piece of work). In secondary we had a teacher that threw a chair at one of the students, the thing is, the student had dwarfism so a chair thrown at him wasn't going to hit him in the belly but the head. He missed with the chair. He couldn't be removed either, despite attempts.

silentrust

nesf wrote: »

It's more like removing teachers on performance grounds is near impossible. Christ, we had a teacher in 3rd/4th class that the principle and other teachers couldn't remove (he used to make sexually explicit comments in front of us and similar, a real piece of work). In secondary we had a teacher that threw a chair at one of the students, the thing is, the student had dwarfism so a chair thrown at him wasn't going to hit him in the belly but the head. He missed with the chair. He couldn't be removed either, despite attempts.

Quite so nesf, I don't know the exact numbers but your chances of being sacked just for being a poor teacher are virtually nil.

As much as I am a lefty, this is mostly the fault of the Unions who have spent so long insisting that there's no fair/accurate way to measure a teacher's performance, pretty much everyone else has started to believe it, hence situations with that teacher behaving totally inappropriately but no one being able to do anything.

I have of course seen the flipside of the coin as you saw above where a teacher has been suspended for weeks over a spurious allegation while the so-called investigation was completed (just so much box-ticking if you ask me...)

Two of the reasons I think private schools do better academically than state ones* is that they find it a lot easier to swing the axe as well as being able to offer better pay to recruit the cream of teachers - I am a public schoolboy myself, did have a few rotten apples but they didn't stay with us for very long.

ST.

*Before anyone jumps down my throat please remember I said these are two reasons. I know that Public Schools also have an entrance exam so they can weed out less able children, Mummy & Daddy can afford private tutors, extra disposable income means their little darlings are more likely to go to University etc. etc.

Moonbeam

Entrance exams were stopped before I got to secondary schools:) They are not allowed to be biased based on academic ability.
Personally I went to private secondary school and their are alot of pros and cons for it.

silentrust

Moonbeam wrote: »

Entrance exams were stopped before I got to secondary schools:) They are not allowed to be biased based on academic ability.
Personally I went to private secondary school and their are alot of pros and cons for it.

A real blessing! The Public School I went to agreed to forgo the exam for more able students, so I can say boastfully I didn't have to take it but it was a real privilege to be surrounded by such fine minds, a very humbling experience.

But to return to the topic at hand, why not have them in the classrooms? That way we can monitor teachers' performance at will. My mother who is a teacher and active Trade Unionist would crucify me for suggesting it but if they felt it was too Orwellian, they could try working for a law firm like I did where I had to log every minute of work so we could bill clients.

Incidentally how do we feel about audio with CCTV? Do we think it would be a good idea/bad idea to record what people say too?

Asporadic

A lot of teacher bashing going on in here.




As a teacher, I would have to say Im quite skeptical when it comes to cases of teachers who apparently assault multiple people per class.



I do not doubt there may have been a lingering in some teachers after hitting was removed. And I dont doubt some awful things probably happened in the years after.



But I hear stories now (apparently happening in 2012/2013) were teachers are hitting 16/17 year olds with rulers and leather belts. 20 students in a class and they all witness it and of course we are all in on it. Everyones been briefed, the principal, the other teachers, all the students so when parents come in nobody knows anything about it. If it gets as far as the Garda once again we all have our stories straight.




Its bull$hit of the highest order.




In reality these days we cant put a foot wrong. Every student in the class has a camera phone of some description and believe me if I said something wrong, or did something wrong it would be going viral on youtube/facebook before I get home that night.




So in that sense Im not convinced we need CCTV.




And forgetting CCTV for a moment, we are on very shaky ground as teachers. Its cool to hate teachers. Its cool to prove the teacher wrong. Its cool to be above the teacher. You only have to look to youtube to see this. In Ireland its particularly bad. Teachers aren't very far from priests and politicians on the hate scale. All it takes is one baseless accusation from a student who said we kept him back after class and hit him to end a career before it even starts. It doesn't even matter if there was 2 or 3 other witnesses who take your side. It makes the slightest difference.




Now as a parent I would be very concerned about who has access to this CCTV. I dont know if people here fully realise how much potential there is for misuse of power in CCTV. I say this as a person who was dragged through court (as a witness) over a case of a security guard using the supermarkets CCTV to zoom in on womens breasts. We all know kids say and do stupid things from time-to-time. Its bad enough your peers having the chance to immortalise a moment of stupidity with an iphone, nevermind the caretaker having the power to watch every child and hear conversations from the far side of the room.




As a teacher I dont see the point. As a parent I would be concerned.

silentrust

Asporadic wrote: »

A lot of teacher bashing going on in here.




As a teacher, I would have to say Im quite skeptical when it comes to cases of teachers who apparently assault multiple people per class.



I do not doubt there may have been a lingering in some teachers after hitting was removed. And I dont doubt some awful things probably happened in the years after.



But I hear stories now (apparently happening in 2012/2013) were teachers are hitting 16/17 year olds with rulers and leather belts. 20 students in a class and they all witness it and of course we are all in on it. Everyones been briefed, the principal, the other teachers, all the students so when parents come in nobody knows anything about it. If it gets as far as the Garda once again we all have our stories straight.




Its bull$hit of the highest order.




In reality these days we cant put a foot wrong. Every student in the class has a camera phone of some description and believe me if I said something wrong, or did something wrong it would be going viral on youtube/facebook before I get home that night.




So in that sense Im not convinced we need CCTV.




And forgetting CCTV for a moment, we are on very shaky ground as teachers. Its cool to hate teachers. Its cool to prove the teacher wrong. Its cool to be above the teacher. You only have to look to youtube to see this. In Ireland its particularly bad. Teachers aren't very far from priests and politicians on the hate scale. All it takes is one baseless accusation from a student who said we kept him back after class and hit him to end a career before it even starts. It doesn't even matter if there was 2 or 3 other witnesses who take your side. It makes the slightest difference.




Now as a parent I would be very concerned about who has access to this CCTV. I dont know if people here fully realise how much potential there is for misuse of power in CCTV. I say this as a person who was dragged through court (as a witness) over a case of a security guard using the supermarkets CCTV to zoom in on womens breasts. We all know kids say and do stupid things from time-to-time. Its bad enough your peers having the chance to immortalise a moment of stupidity with an iphone, nevermind the caretaker having the power to watch every child and hear conversations from the far side of the room.




As a teacher I dont see the point. As a parent I would be concerned.

Thank you for your thoughts Asporadic,

As mentioned previously I was a teacher and one of the many reasons I left was the lack of support from up on high if accused of a crime. The worst part of course is that even if the Police find there are no merit to the claims in the UK, so-called "soft" intelligence like an accusation can be recorded and included in the compulsory disclosure you have to produce each time you work for a new school or organisation dealing with children.

I mentioned an example previously where despite the fact I witnessed that my colleague had not in fact assaulted a student sexually, he was still suspended for several weeks. CCTV would have exonerated him immediately - perhaps it would also protect teachers from assaults by pupils which of course is more likely than a teacher assaulting everyone in their class with a ruler. Of course it usually only proves itself useful after the fact!

As you say, there's a potential for abuse and privacy concerns- naturally it wouldn't be justified to have cameras in learning areas e.g in the staff room, changing rooms etc. If I were a parent as well I would want to see how the school goes about safeguarding the data and making sure it's only released to interested parties in accordance with the law.

However, I am not sure the expectation of privacy is/should be as great in a school as in your home. A school is a public place and provided the camera doesn't capture anything that any member of staff couldn't see themselves, I would say the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.

My only real concern is that it would make students more reticent to talk about themselves, particularly if they genuinely had been a victim of some kind of abuse, if they were to admit that on record then it might put events in motion they wouldn't want - and yes, although it's not a popular point of view, the best response in every situation isn't for a gang of police officers to hoof in the door and drag the abuser away in chains straight away.

Cabaal

Doom wrote: »

That's a crap argument money should never be a issue for child safety.

You're right, neither should privacy issues.

Install tracking chips in all kids sure, if it keeps kids safe then what harm about privacy issues
:rolleyes:

silentrust

Cabaal wrote: »

You're right, neither should privacy issues.

Install tracking chips in all kids sure, if it keeps kids safe then what harm about privacy issues
:rolleyes:

I do see a difference between passive video monitoring in a public place during work hours only and an invasive medical procedure which monitors you at all times! :-)

I know how to raise the money though - get rid of electronic whiteboards and use the money you save for security cameras. Not only are they pointless considering a regular marker board is just as good but I inevitably ended up writing on them several times by accident(!)

Cabaal

silentrust wrote: »

I do see a difference between passive video monitoring in a public place during work hours only and an invasive medical procedure which monitors you at all times! :-)

Perhaps you do, but not everyone does,
Also lets not remember that not everyone is ok with cctv being used in places in general.

As we've seen in the past, one persons or in this case schools view on how acceptable cctv's are (remember the school a few years ago who put them in the toilets) can differ alot from others.

Personally I'm not a fan of them in general, they are not the be all and end of everything like some people like to believe and they create a slippery slope when it comes to people's privacy and civil liberty's.

I know how to raise the money though - get rid of electronic whiteboards and use the money you save for security cameras. Not only are they pointless considering a regular marker board is just as good but I inevitably ended up writing on them several times by accident(!)

Hang on,
So because you've managed to incorrectly write on one means they are pointless? This your error not the whiteboards. If I use permanent marker on a regular chalkboard does that mean its silly also?

Sure if somebody writes on a computer monitor, does that make the computer monitor pointless also? Sure paper could do the same job as a computer monitor...the monitor must also be a waste of money and sure paper is just as good

spurious

I would LOVE CCTV in my classroom. Let some deluded parents see exactly what their darlings get up to.

silentrust

Cabaal wrote: »

Perhaps you do, but not everyone does,
Also lets not remember that not everyone is ok with cctv being used in places in general.

As we've seen in the past, one persons or in this case schools view on how acceptable cctv's are (remember the school a few years ago who put them in the toilets) can differ alot from others.

Personally I'm not a fan of them in general, they are not the be all and end of everything like some people like to believe and they create a slippery slope when it comes to people's privacy and civil liberty's.




Hang on,
So because you've managed to incorrectly write on one means they are pointless? This your error not the whiteboards. If I use permanent marker on a regular chalkboard does that mean its silly also?

Sure if somebody writes on a computer monitor, does that make the computer monitor pointless also? Sure paper could do the same job as a computer monitor...the monitor must also be a waste of money and sure paper is just as good

You're quite fond of the old reducto ad absurdum aren't you? :-)

No, my personal failings at using electronic whiteboards don't count for much on their own but it was a common problem in the schools I worked in and it involved a considerable outlay for something we already had in the form of regular chalkboards* and whiteboards.

A computer monitor is necessary to view information the computer displays - as of yet we don't really have any other way to do it, bar an electronic projector I suppose.

If I may take a leaf from your book and take the question to its extremes though, we would probably be able to reduce crime significantly by having a security camera surgically implanted in everyone's head. Similarly if we were to do away with electronic surveillance altogether we'd see a spike in undetected crime.

So, we need, to have a reasoned debate about striking a balance between people's privacy and ensuring public safety.

There is a difference between this and the slippery slope you refer to - it's not all or nothing. The school you mentioned clearly went too far in installing CCTV in the toilets, we can regulate it so that they're only used in work hours. I think we also need to have a clear policy about who has access to the information, how long we keep it for, and under what circumstances it's released which of course is exactly what we do have for public places like shopping malls who already do this.

My last job in a hotel had no less than 27 security cameras covering all the public areas, I know this as I occasionally had to consult them to find lost guests or deal with queries from the Police. Naturally we didn't have them inside the rooms, that's just a matter of common sense.

It even saved my bacon on one occasion as a guest mistakenly believe someone had broken into her room while I was on duty. She flipped out but I was able to calm her down by showing her the footage from the corridor outside her room.

TLDR : It's not an all or nothing argument. We can install CCTV but have safeguards to regulate their use.

*I was told it is now non-PC to say a "blackboard" but the term whiteboard seems to be OK.

touts

I would be fine with CCTV in my child's Creche and next year in his School. BUT only if it was recorded in the scool office and not if it could be accessed by parents/grandparents/aunts/aunt's boyfriend/aunt's boyfriend's dodgy flatmate....

Anyway most abuse of children happens within their immediate family or family friends. I don't know 90% of the parents of children in my son's school but I'll bet there are at least a few that I won't hang out with in the pub let alone trust with a live video stream of my child. Why would that change just because their son or daughter is sitting at a table 3 rows further back?