It is a given that cameras are in all the common areas in the schools (hallways, gym, cafeteria, entrances, outside thw building, etc). What are your thoughts about cameras in the classroom? Do you think it is a good idea or a bad one?

I'm not sure but it would have been nice to easily disprove the unfounded allegations a student made.

Our contract doesn’t allow it.

Many people disagree and I know it will never happen, but I feel that cameras in the classroom would be extremely helpful. Items are stolen. Kids put hands on each other. Objects are thrown. Books are defaced. They squirt each other with water bottles, etc. I can’t always catch who started what with whom.

I just think it's a bad idea. I'm sure there are arguments for it, but I just hate that kids are already living in a panopticon. I'm glad I was a kid before everyone was under surveillance all the time. I feel like today's kids must be different because they know they're always being watched. It's actually one of the interesting aspects of the CEO shooting two weeks ago, the perpetrator is fairly young and he seemed to be very aware that he would be caught on camera as he moved about.

The cameras is the common areas have been helpful for my coworkers who have been wrongly accused of mishandling students on the playground or in the hall. The admin has been able to review the footage to see what actually happened, saving my hard working and honest friends from losing their jobs due to untrue reporting. That being said, I think in this day and age, where people don’t seem to be living up to being honest, hard working, and kind to one another, cameras would be a good idea. Proof that we as teachers are not doing anything wrong is needed more often than not. I find this to be very discouraging, but very true.

Couldn’t happen in my classroom. We do hygiene in the room all day long.

Privacy rules violation Public areas have different rules

I am for it.

IF admin are in classrooms more frequently and are aware of the daily activities and are able to observe the interactions between teacher and students as well as the interactions among the students, they would be more able to defend a teacher if needed. I know there are things that occur , but being able to support and defend a teacher to an upset parent is huge.

For every good point comes a bad point it seems. I would be more towards having them everywhere, but even that isn’t fail proof when it comes to proving things. We started a couple years ago getting cameras on all school buses and that has been huge in a lot of issues that used to come up and fingers being pointed at each other.

We have cameras in our classroom
I am not for it