KANAWHA COUNTY, W.Va. –The Kanawha County Board of Education voted Monday to approve the purchase of new security cameras for special-needs classrooms within its schools.
Board members approved a $541,228 purchase agreement with Advantage Technology for security cameras, sensors, and licenses.
These cameras are in addition to those the board approved for purchase in May for the schools.
KCS Executive Director of Technology Leah Sparks said they didn’t include the special needs classrooms in the original purchase because those classrooms already had 90-day systems, and state law requires them to switch to 365-day cameras if they make any changes.
Sparks said however, since they began installing the other cameras, they are impressed with how they work.
“We realized just how amazing they are, how easy it is, how everything is recorded, preserved, backed up, and how easy it is for us to access and review,” Sparks said.
KCS Superintendent Paula Potter said these are necessary.
“We think this is really needed,” Potter said. “Mrs. McIntosh’s office spends so much time reviewing film footage and this will just make it much easier, much clearer, to make sure we’re doing the right things.”
Sparks said this was approval was just for the purchase of the cameras and licenses since they will be the ones installing the new ones.
“My staff will take the installation of those since there’s already existing cameras there, we just do the camera swaps,” Sparks said.
She said there will be about 219 cameras and about 50 sensors across all the special needs classrooms within the county.