Schools allowed to videotape children in bathroom

http://wmaz.com/news/top_stories.aspx?storyid=20466

SECRETLY!!!!!!



um, if anyone else video tapes a child in the bathroom it would be go directly to jail, do not pass go

wtf is wrong with Georgia?

that kid should be given a metal, not punished

wtf?!?!

Just what has happened over the last few years to the notion that people have a right to privacy? It seems to have given way to the notion that those in positions of authority should be able to snoop anywhere they please for the flimsiest of reasons and when anyone protests they're shouted down by the 'If you're don't have anything to hide why should you mind?' crowd.

I am by no means agreeing with the school's actions, but take a look at the alternatives:

1. Vandalizing continues and the school (and those in that community) continue to pay for repairs or the school goes without (whatever it was that was being vandalized).
   
2. The school either takes a staff member out of their current position or hires someone else to watch the bathroom (multiplied by the number or bathrooms). Again, the community will be paying for this, or other areas in the school will be lacking. Either way, the invasion of privacy is right back where the camera started.
   
3. Offer only strictly monitored bathroom periods.
   

Any of them are distasteful. There is always someone to tear down what others try so hard to build up. How would you propose to combat this Mulch?

anyone else who has video of children going to the bathroom would be imprisoned, right?

how about a camera OUTSIDE the bathroom monitoring traffic. the bathroom is examined by school security and maintenence during regular intervals. new vandalism would identify people in the restroom during the periods of examination.

that was with about 30 seconds of thought

using hidden cameras to videotape children in the bathroom is plain wrong and sick and is the obvious wrong choice

the fact that you defend this would concern me, but you tend to troll my threads so, well, its just Kurgan being Kurgan I guess

I will quote myself, just for the record...

The question was:
Let me define 'this': vandalism in the school

It is a problem that many schools face (my aunt is a special ed teacher that deals with many individual children that have social problems). Her school faces the destruction of property problem as well. They have opted to place teachers in the restrooms on their break time. Not hardly fair to teachers to give up their break time, but they chose to do that to save money for the school.

Again, I am not in favor of cameras in the bathrooms (or locker rooms), but how would you combat it Mulch?

Edit: Sorry, for some reason this did not get posted... (to many copy and pastes)

The problem with the interval is, you have to narrow it down to a few moments between entries of individuals. Something most schools can not do. My graduating class was 716 (over 2500 in the High School). The last graduating class was almost 1500. The amount of traffic in any place in the school would be large enough to make this type of solution un-workable.

I am actually not paid by any school district to solve their problems

I gave 1 solution in my last post for using video cameras in a non invasive way

it is conveniently located just above your post and may be accessed with a mouse or arrow button

btw, this is a social problem. parents not teaching children right from wrong is the underlying problem, the vandalism is a symptom

this isn't true in all cases, as some people are just born fuktards

but I suspect the majority of kids who are destructive at this level have needs not being met in the home place

so to answer your question, i don't have a solution for society's problems. How would you handle society's problems, Kurgan?

I am assuming this is true, but you posted it for a reason, did you not? You obviously think it wrong that the school would do such a thing. So, I was assuming you had something better in mind...
That is a bad question to ask a Christian

Teach everyone the words of Jesus. Teach them to love. Teach them that material things mean little. Teach them that others are more important than themselves. Teach them to love again.

Take away the power of those in control of our country and our economy. Give it to those who do not want it. Watch it flower into something beautiful (or spiral down into a dictatorship as those who previously had power take it back).

Make parents pass a test to have children

Make ALL individuals responsible for their actions.

Stop the ridiculous court cases.

Make doctors pay patients when the 'cure' doesn't work.

Terminate all insurance companies.

Put media in the hands of the public, not power brokers like Viacom and GE.

Make ALL government (local, state, and federal) actions publicly accessible (down to the last voice, to the last cent). The truth would set us all free.

And above all make judgements for everyone out of love, for without love, there is nothing.

I am a Christian as well, however, people who do bad things in Jesus name scare me and anger me.



I have many moral reasons to avoid proselytization, example, as referenced by my above answer:



This is not the way of Jesus by any means. I could invoke Jesus, as certain political parties do to get away with war and other crimes against people. Such is a fundamental problem with trying to induce Christianity where it is not wanted.



Parents job. While I agree in principle, how do you force parents to understand such things, much less teach?



I agree, I forget the quote or who said it (thinking Mark Twain) but to paraphrase:

Elect the person who does not want to be elected.



Damn humans. Absolute power corrupts absolutely



I wish this was doable, but ethically, it is not possible on any level. What was the old quote about needing a test for a drivers license but any idiot can have kids.



Here Here!!

Including those in power who commit war crimes and absolve themselves of "on the job" responisbility



???



There is no money in cures. There is only money in "treatments". When was the last time you heard of anything being cured? Polio?



I don't like or trust insurance companies, but I think food and healthcare should be the foundation for our society, even to the capitalists who abhore that socialist concept. But securing the environment for you to persue wealth should be a requirement of admission to freedom.



I would have put media much higher on my list. There are so many reasons that it would need it's own subsection of the forums. Personally my feeling is the the U.S. citizens greatest failure is the attitude of blissful ignorance. As we are seeing, another paraphrase (Jefferson or Franklin I beleive), "those who won't guard freedom deserve to lose it"



If only the ostrich syndrome didn't prevent people from daring and paying attention. We are not at risk from enemies in the middle east, europe, or asia, we are at risk internally and each loss of liberty and safegaurd is another step in losing what we have.

As a liberal, I surprise people as I support the 2nd amendment

Not for duck hunting
Not For drive bys
not to protect from invasion from outside
but to keep a tyranical government in check





Brilliant paraphrase of Christs teachings from a pop band of all things

yes i posted it for a reason. It is not proper for any person to do, much less an institution

I am outraged by the secret invasion of privacy of these children

and the better thing I had in mind was "do not invade anyones privacy, much less children"

it is unacceptable and should not be tolerated in a civilized society

and for someone who preaches Christs teachings, you seem to put emphasis on cost/benefit ratio in delegating what you feel is an acceptable "solution" in a right/wrong situation

so we can do wrong if it saves us money?

great point on dummy cams

i too, am concerned, on what the principal was trying to get "up and up"

who is watching the watchers?

I agree whole-heartedly, as I have stated in other posts. However, this does not detract from the Bible in my opinion, it just detracts from those who try to abuse it.

I do not... Teach the words of Jesus, not the words of man. Teach the meaning, and you will have love.

While I will not judge Coulter publicly, I will also not stand next to any of her ideals that I have seen publicized.

Make them accountable for their actions for one. Next, make them accountable for their children's actions? Not really fair as my folks would have been in trouble a lot... I don't have a real answer to this one. But I believe it is more than the parents job. Wasn't it Hillary that said, 'It takes a village?'

Well, China has a way to do it Lets give up some of those freedoms!
I am TOTALLY kidding here...

Maybe make it mandatory to take some class to give birth in a public (governmentally funded hospital)?

Not wanting to go to war crimes just yet... I know your opinion of that I agree to some extent, but not completely with you, so I would rather not go there here...

Drop frivolous court cases. The guy we bought our home from 11 years ago had won a lawsuit against Coca-Cola (a six figure amount) and had 5 other pending claims against them. All of it had to do with he was lazy, or so I am told by ALL of the neighbors he left behind.

This does not make it ethical or practical. Doctors take an oath (or so I am told) that would not let this happen. This goes back to what I feel parents should teach their children...

Socialism sucks, not matter what. It has never worked on a large scale that I have ever seen. But, back to the statements of Jesus, put others before yourself. This would take care of all that you state here. It would not stop those from taking advantage of you, unfortunately. Another Utopian idea like socialism I guess.

The problem really is, if I don't know about it, I don't have to act on it, so don't tell me about it. A problem my church faces every Sunday...

But this would be solved completely with a transparent government publicly viewable via the internet. The new media would report (from all sides) on what was going on. Look how fast the internet jumped on Wallace's (I think it was him) report on W.

I was not claiming these to be MY imparatives, I am stating what secular society looks at.

This was prior to the question of what Kurgan would do...

Was this camera aimed inside a stall or was it aimed at something that gets vandalized, like a towel dispenser? Do the stalls have doors? I'm not saying that hidden cameras were a good idea, but that link was a bit skimpy on details. The camera may have just caught people walking by, and nothing inside the stalls.

Before anyone says that I'm condoning this, I also agree it was a bad idea. Cameras outside the restroom make more sense.

A friend told me that in some country (japan maybe), students are doing the cleaning up ; they clean their classroom at least ; and so they don't have tables with lots of writen text on it or whatever as they know they'd have to clean it next.
I'm sure that if toilet cleaning was done by students, on a random basis - no way to know if you're the next to do it - then people would tend to vandalise (or be unclean) less.

It's called learning to live with others.

It's the government. what do you expect, freedom and respect for individuals?

Maybe it's a screening process to help congresspersons to select new assistants.

In Canada and in the U.S. in the 1950's and 1960's many schools had their students do this. Before we left the class room for the day we swept the floor, erased the board, wiped off the desks, straightened them and there was a crew of kids that cleaned the restrooms and cafeteria.

We had only one janitor for the entire school and the kids pretty much did all the rest of the work. As I recall, it wasn't punishment either, we used to jockey around positions to try and get into certain cleaning groups.

Kids have written on restroom walls since restrooms have had walls, but there is paint available now that allows for even the most permanent of markers to wash off easily. Most of these issues can be managed and they are managed better without cameras.

To have cameras HIDDEN INSIDE the restrooms is as Juro said, not as effective as having them exposed, designed to change behavior and as Juro said, I think someone should have a closer look at the motives of the "watcher".

.

How about option 4, put a camera OUTSIDE the bathroom to catch students going in and out, and then just have a teacher or janitor check the bathroom every hour or so. You won't actually catch the offender in the act, but you will certainly gain an understanding of who's doing it and you can go from there.

What that school did was viloate the rights of all to combat the misdeeds of one. That cannot be accepted under any circumstances. That principal should be facing criminal charges.

There is another alternative:

1. make the students not want to vandalize the bathrooms

There are a number of ways to do this from the draconian to the enlightened.

A hardline approach would be to make the penalty for vandalism severe beyond the crime - for example, bank draft (check) forgery can get you 20 years in jail thus there is little significant forgery.

A more enlightened approach would be to cause the kids to not consider vandalism. You can actually inculcate principles like "respect for shared spaces". According to the Jasper County School district per student spending in 2004 was US$6800, which puts them not far from the national average of $8000 (which is not standardized for regional cost of living differences which would likely make Jasper a higher expenditure school). It take someone to care, to pass down the message of what is right and perhaps understand the Broken Window Syndrome where evidence of vandalism inspires more.

However, my guess is the cameras are actually there for way scummy voyeurism or to catch kids imbibing their chemical of choice and the vandalism thing is just a cover story. How expensive is the monitoring system relative to vandalism repairs? Probably high enough to make the "cover story" just that.

The problem with cameras OUTSIDE the bathroom (having a teacher or janitor check the bathroom every hour or so):

Teachers, looking in on bathrooms that get used over 300 times in an hour, will be hard pressed to select a single (or group of) individual(s) for a duration of even a few minutes.

Again, please note that I am NOT for cameras in bathrooms.

its nt a good thing, but of course it will probably be necessiary to prevent pot smokers and violence in the bathrooms.

God does not exist, Pypo.

~Ulrika~

What in the world did that have to do with Pypo's post? Or were you referring to the violent Mary Jane bathroom god?