Hayfield Holds Meeting on Surveillance Cameras

Around 30 people attended a meeting at Hayfield Secondary Monday night to discuss a proposal to install surveillance cameras in Fairfax County public schools.

"I would love to see us fund [cameras] for the entire building," Principal Dave Tremaine told the audience in the school's library.

Earlier this month, the Fairfax County High School Principals Association and FCPS's Department of Facilities and Transportation Services  to install surveillance cameras in schools. The Board is set to discuss the issue again on October 17.

Tremaine said there are three ways cameras can be installed in schools. The first would put cameras only in cafeterias, and would cost an average of $8,000 per school. Installing cameras throughout a school would average around $120,000. A third option, installing cameras only in the cafeteria, the gym lobby, and in "hot spots," would cost somewhere between the first and second option, Tremaine said.

He insisted, however, that no cameras would be installed in bathrooms or classrooms.

Tremaine said that Hayfield needs the cameras, after a year of at the school and . He acknowledged, though, that students would figure out ways to avoid the cameras.

"They're going to migrate," he said.

Hayfield already has surveillance cameras installed on the exteriors of buildings.

, a candidate for the Springfield seat on the School Board, said at the meeting that he was suspicious of the timing behind the camera proposal. He also said crime that occurs in bathrooms would still be missed.

"Who hasn't had a smoke in the restroom when you're in high school?" Wittman said.

Dan Storck, the School Board member from Mount Vernon, was also at the meeting to hear from his constituents. Storck said he thought the School Board should withhold action on the issue until the Board's new members are elected.

"I don't like ubiquitous cameras," Storck told Patch.

After the initial discussion, audience members broke into small groups to fill out questionnaires about the cameras.