Not only would this be an expensive action, but installing cameras to monitor students in the school parking lot would create the hassle of having to check which students are leaving and determining if they are leaving with permission or without it. Between the students who leave school for appointments, off-periods, and activities such as PALS or ReadySetTeach, if a faculty member were to be spending their entire day watching back the footage of students leaving, then looking up each license plate and finding out if they are excused to leave, it would get very tedious and be a waste of time for a staff member to spend their time doing. The school would be better off to just use attendance rosters to determine who is or isn’t at school instead of depending on cameras.

The school would have to pay a minimum of approximately $300 per camera between buying the camera itself and installation. Coinciding with this, if they were to put in enough cameras to accurately see every car and be able to detect car accidents or students leaving class, the school would likely need more than 20 cameras between our four parking lots. This would take a massive chunk of the school’s budget that should be spent on things that are more needed, like teacher supplies. Though cameras would be helpful to see hit and run accidents that happen on-campus, these accidents occur far too sparsely for the purchase of the cameras to be worth buying.

To determine students who are leaving when they aren’t allowed to leave and observe hit and runs that may occur in the parking lot, the school should just reinstate having a faculty member to inspect the parking lots and entrances of the school regularly. Since the school has already had this position in the past, it wouldn’t be as damaging to the school’s budget as installing expensive cameras and then hiring someone to spend their entire day monitoring the footage. The school should simply reinstate the position that they used to have filled and not install cameras in the parking lot.