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Split U-46 vote ratifies police monitoring pact


By Seth Hancock
  The Inter-Governmental Agreement between School District U-46 and the City of Elgin giving the police department access to district cameras was approved by the Board of Education with a 5-2 vote on Monday, Nov. 7.
  As The Examiner previously reported, the district understood that the agreement represented a violation of “privacy rights” as it called it a balance between rights and safety in an administrative memo.
  That violation of rights, and no safeguards being in place other than the agreement, concerned board member Jeanette Ward who along with Cody Holt voted no to the pact.
  “I’m very uncomfortable with what is becoming a surveillance society,” Ward said. “I have concerns with how this will, in essence, train students to become used to being watched by those in power and become more accepting of this loss of privacy while at the same time they are not allowed to record video themselves.”
  Ward added: “Privacy is fundamentally one of the most important civil rights we have, and I believe diluting our privacy rights in the name of safety and security is an overreaction. Statistics show that violence has been on the decline in America, and mass shootings have not seen any increase. There’s only been an increase in the coverage of these tragedies.”
  John Heiderscheidt, director of school safety and culture, said incidents like Sandy Hook and Columbine were “on our minds” when drawing up the agreement. Pew research and statistics from Northwestern University criminologist James Alan Fox show that numbers regarding violence and mass shootings are on the decline or at least flat.
  Elgin police will have the capabilities to constantly view those in front of U-46 cameras, and the only safeguard is reasons outlined in the agreement when the police can monitor cameras.
  There was a language change in the agreement from when it was presented on Oct. 17. Ward said she appreciated the addition “which asserts the understanding that the City Police Department will not be monitoring the cameras on a continual basis,” however “there is no safeguard in place to prevent that.”
  “I personally believe our founders did not intend us to give up the privacy of our children or ourselves in exchange for security,” Ward said. “Attending public school ought not to mean that Fourth Amendment rights are weakened or forfeited.”
  Board member Sue Kerr asked how long it would take for the police to access the district’s cameras without the agreement. Heiderscheidt offered no specifics but said the police would have to travel to the district’s “control center.”
  The board unanimously approved a change to policy Section 2.201, which concerns closed session meetings, to now affirm the rights of elected board members to access closed session recordings without majority approval. The change was necessary because an update by the Illinois General Assembly to the Open Meetings Act, clarifying that that right always existed for local elected officials, was made less than a year after the majority on the U-46 board changed the policy in order to deny the minority member’s rights to access recordings, specifically to Ward who requested access to all closed session meetings shortly after taking her seat.
  Also unanimously approved were expenditures of $609,500 with Anderson Lock Company, which will come out of the education fund, and $91,550 with Pearson Learning Assessments, which the nation’s taxpayers will pick up the bill through Title I and II funds, as well as $11.2 million in itemized bills.
  Ward asked a few questions regarding the itemized bills including expenses of $26,000 to each U-46 high school which Dale Burnidge, director of financial operations, said that goes for “athletic revolving accounts.”
  “That is the district sending the funds to the schools to cover like the costs for the officials for the winter sports season,” said Burnidge who added that once the schools collect athletic fees they will pay back the district.
  Contracts of $25,000 or more are meant to come before the board for a vote, and Ward asked why some of the itemized bills over that amount did not come before the board separately. Burnidge said “the majority” does but vendors like Office Depot represent hundreds of invoices and not one specific purchase of over $25,000.

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