Foxborough Schools Look to Add 70 Surveillance Cameras to Boost Safety Throughout District

Foxborough voters will be asked at Town Meeting in May to approve a plan presented by Foxborough Public Schools officials to install 70 surveillance cameras at each of the town's five schools to improve security. The cost of the project is estimated at $112,000.

The cameras would be installed on the exterior of the buildings as well as in main corridors and possibly in common areas like libraries, media rooms and cafeterias, according to Foxborough Public Schools Superintendent Debra Spinelli.

Currently, the only cameras in operation are at the main entrances of each of the five schools.

“Right now everything is kind of blind,” Spinelli said.

The added cameras, according to Foxborough School Business Administrator Bill Yukna, would improve the safety and security throughout the entire school district.

“The basic thing is can you see down a hall to see where disturbances are? If you can, the police have advance notice as to where they’re going and what they’re doing,” Yunka said. “[The cameras] would be tied directly to the police department. They’d have the ability to set it up so that if someone came up the driveway at the high school late at night it would come right up on their screens. So, they’d know to go patrol instead of having to worry about guessing the right time to be up there,” he said.

Spinelli said she has heard positive feedback about the plan and has been talking to parents, students and faculty about the proposal.

“Nobody seems to be worried about the monitoring," Spinelli said. "We don’t have the staff to monitor that many cameras 24-hours-a-day. But if we needed to and somebody said something suspicious is going on the police department would be able to get accurate information about what they can see.”

The proposal calls for 70 cameras to be installed throughout the district. The breakdown per school looks like this:

• 16 cameras at Foxborough High School

• 16 cameras at Ahern Middle School

• 14 cameras at Igo Elementary
• 12 cameras at Burrell Elementary
  
  
• 12 cameras at Taylor Elementary

Spinelli said they would not be installed in classrooms or in private areas like bathrooms and locker rooms.

If approved, Yukna said they would begin installing the wiring for the cameras over the summer when school is not in session.

“Timing-wise it would be a roll out plan so we’ll have to start with one building and just kind of work our way through it," he said. "I think when it really comes down to it teachers and kids want a safe, secure learning environment first and so if this is minimally invasive and it gives them a little bit more security and sense of safety than that’s really what we’re trying to do."

TELL US: Do you think installing 70 cameras throughout Foxborough's school district to improve overall safety is worth $122,000? Let us know in the comments section below!