Special Report: New technology keeping kids safe at Central Coast schools

Heading into August and a new school year, some Central Coast schools might look a little different. Some people have been enjoying the break, but schools are working hard to improve safety for kids on campus.

Things like security cameras, faculty key cards and police presence on campus are becoming the norm at a lot of schools, but that’s only been a recent phenomenon.

Statistics from The National Center for Education Statistics looked at safety measures at schools since the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting in 2012.

In the 2011-12 school year, a little more than 64 percent of public schools nationwide used security cameras. That jumped to 75 percent in the 2013-2014 school year.

Also in the 2011-12 school year, only 28 percent reported having police or private security on campus, compared to 43 percent following Sandy Hook.

At Monterey High School, the first line of defense used to be employees whose job had nothing to do with security.

“They just had, well people, just custodians and whatnot doing the monitoring,” said Ezequiel Contreras, the information technology administrator at the Monterey Peninsula Unified School District.

But thanks to a federal grant, 2015 is a new era of safety at MPUSD.

“Small or big, these cameras make a huge difference,” Contreras said.

Known around school as “Zeke the IT guy,” Contreras is the man behind the lens of 16 surveillance cameras covering 80 percent of Monterey High.

Salinas City Elementary School District has proof these cameras do work. District officials released video footage of suspects committing various crimes. Assistant Superintendent Jerry Stratton said police were then able to track down some of the suspects.

It’s not just the footage, Stratton said. Just having the cameras mounted in obvious places acts as a deterrent, and crimes are avoided altogether.

At MPUSD, the initial concern when three middle schools and three high schools were planning on installing cameras was privacy. Would school officials constantly be watching?

“I want to clarify that we’re not actively monitoring it,” Contreras said. “I think they kind of let off on that, because they thought we were going to sit there, you look at every person passing by, which is not the case.”

There are no cameras in the classrooms at either schools district.

“No, I haven’t heard any, any kind of complaints,” said Carol Rodrigues, the president of the Salinas Elementary Teacher’s Council.

“We’re not spying on anyone,” Stratton said.

Right now, there are 159 cameras spread across 14 SCESD campuses, Stratton wants to add 38 more.

At MPUSD, Marina, Seaside and Monterey Police Departments collaborated with the district to secure the $50,000 Secure Our Schools Grant

Along with the cameras, MPUSD also has installed motion censor technology in its classrooms and key card access for its faculty and staff.

“People can just leave the campus knowing, if anything happens, we should be able to get to the bottom of it,” Contreras said.

The Marina community was the last to receive cameras. MPUSD just installed them last month at the high school and Los Arboles Middle School.