Community Chat

[LTT1]

SPED stands for Special Education.
The way in which SPED classrooms are identified/set up varies from school to school.
"Self-contained" is a term that defines a particular classroom/subject as an environment that contains the students within it as part of a "special" program. [(ie: Emotionally Disturbed/Autism/Life Skills (kitchen cooking cleaning up)].

General Education classes (English/Math/Science/Social Studies) either can contain SPED students or not, depending upon the policy of each district.

[stevieb]

That the question is even asked is frightening and makes me glad I don't have children.  No, I don't think video surveillance in all rooms is indicated, necessary or desirable.  

[Janealma]

I work as a Speech Pathologist in Special Ed in a school district in California. In my district, cameras have been installed in every school (46 of them) on the grounds, all hallways, cafeteria, playground, & bus area. This has decreased immensely situations with teachers, parents and students. The principal can immediately bring up video at school to check out any accusation. There are no cameras in classrooms or bathrooms. Also students cannot take out a cell phone at school. If caught, it is taken to office and parent must come to pick it up after school to get it back. Parents must sign this policy when school starts or when they enroll in school. I feel protected with the cameras, but don't see a need for cameras in the classroom at this time. The outside cameras have helped classroom management to an extent.

[missy1]

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@Janealma wrote:
I work as a Speech Pathologist in Special Ed in a school district in California. In my district, cameras have been installed in every school (46 of them) on the grounds, all hallways, cafeteria, playground, & bus area. This has decreased immensely situations with teachers, parents and students. The principal can immediately bring up video at school to check out any accusation. There are no cameras in classrooms or bathrooms. Also students cannot take out a cell phone at school. If caught, it is taken to office and parent must come to pick it up after school to get it back. Parents must sign this policy when school starts or when they enroll in school. I feel protected with the cameras, but don't see a need for cameras in the classroom at this time. The outside cameras have helped classroom management to an extent.

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Many schools have cameras in those areas, including buses. I don't have a problem with that for the most part. I do with having them in each clasroom.

[wildcat fan]

As a middle school teacher, I welcome cameras in my classroom. I'd volunteer to pilot this, but I don't think our school board would be interested in implementing a camera in the classroom program.

Our students have exhibited some mouth dropping behaviors and some of the outfits look like they belong in a risqué magazine. Of course, many parents don't believe their kids would change clothes from what they left the house in, and their babies certainly wouldn't say or do such things. I think a camera in the classroom would have a positive effect on the classroom classroom climate because everyone would know that negative behaviors would be documented. However, my administration doesn't want to deal with negative student behaviors, so the video footage wouldn't be very useful.

Our students have iPads and cell phones that they use to film whatever/whenever they want. They are supposed to ask for teacher's permission before they use their cameras, but most don't, and there usually isn't a consequence if they use cameras without permission. Since students can secretly film what goes on, I think teachers mounting a public camera is not a big deal, but as I said, my district wouldn't go for it.