District considers security upgrade

RAYMONDVILLE - School officials are considering upgrading the district's new security camera system, school Police Chief Oscar Gutierrez said Wednesday.

The proposed high-tech cameras would work with the district's new surveillance system, he said.

The school district purchased the $70,000 camera system to make the district's four schools safer, school board President John Solis said.

But parent Regino Garcia said the existing security system failed to identify a student he says beat his 13-year-old daughter to upload to an Internet video-sharing Web site.

Garcia said a student beat his daughter on March 11. He said that during the attack, another girl used a cell phone camera to record the beating, which was later uploaded to YouTube, an online video-sharing service that displays personal videos on the Internet.

Another girl helped provoke the girl who hit his daughter in a hallway at Myra Green Middle School, Garcia said.

"The camera was at the opposite end of the hallway and the camera angle didn't catch the fight. It was off-camera," said Garcia, a principal at Edinburg Alternative Academy, a disciplinary school. "The distance did not allow it to make the distinction of who the person hitting my daughter was."

Superintendent Johnny Pineda acknowledged the camera failed to adequately identify the girl who hit Garcia's daughter.

"Do we have enough (cameras) to cover all areas? Probably not," Pineda said. "That's something we're working for."

Even before the videotaped attack at Myra Green, officials were planning to upgrade the district's camera system, Gutierrez said.

Officials have discussed the purchase of as many as 32 IP surveillance cameras, each priced at between $1,000 and $1,500, Gutierrez said.

"You can place them a lot easier in strategic areas," Gutierrez said of the proposed cameras. "You get better coverage of the area."

The proposal has yet to go before the school board, Solis said.

While Garcia said the district's purchase of security cameras was money "down the drain," Pineda called the cameras a "security and safety measure."

"I'm sure they have helped and assisted security," Pineda said. "We're able to monitor areas of the hallways. Obviously, we can't monitor the entire building. We try to place them at the most strategic locations and we reassess that."

School officials installed 16 cameras at each of the district's four campuses and four cameras at its alternative education center, Gutierrez said. Four more cameras were installed at the district's business office, he said.

Gutierrez said he and his three police officers monitor 76 screens installed in his office. But he acknowledged it was difficult for his small staff to monitor all the screens.

The cameras also record activity in the schools, he said.

"It's helped out," Solis said. "We're trying to do the best we can to make sure the kids are safe. But unless every student has someone to follow them around, some things are going to happen."