Air quality sensors will be installed in every MHS bathroom by the start of the 2023-2024 school year, according to Superintendent Cheryl Jordan.
The sensors are being installed in an effort to discourage behaviors in the bathrooms that threaten student and staff safety, according to Assistant Principal Jennifer Hutchison, one of the lead administrators for the project. These behaviors include physical conflicts, loud noises, vandalism, fire hazards, and vape use, she said.
“It’s really, really difficult for security to be in all the bathrooms at the same time,” social studies teacher and department co-lead Paul Harrison said. “These sensors seem to be an alternative way that we could monitor smoking and vaping and other illicit activities in the bathrooms because we know it’s been a problem.”
The school is partnering with Verkada, a security systems company, to install their SV23 air quality sensors, which are capable of detecting temperature, carbon dioxide, tampering, relative humidity, air quality index, fine particulate matter, total volatile organic compound, vape pollutant, motion, and noise, Hutchison said.
“If something’s going on in the bathroom, and the sensor detects it, it’ll notify us,” Hutchison said. “It goes to select staff members’ cell phones as an alert so that we can go investigate what’s going on.”
The sensor observes the room’s condition, not the people in it, Hutchison said. For example, noise is measured in terms of spikes in decibel levels, but no audio is recorded, she said.
“The bathrooms are supervised at times to make sure students are safe and behaving appropriately,” Hutchison said. “But it is a private location as it should be. So this (sensor) just gives us an extra level of peace of mind knowing that we are doing our due diligence to ensure student safety.”
Many bathrooms have been locked during certain times of the day due to vandalism, Hutchison said. Her hope is that the installation of these sensors will be the next step to keeping bathrooms open again, she said.
“It’s sad to me that a few of our students make decisions to prank and vandalize things in the bathrooms without understanding the full magnitude of what happens as a result,” Hutchison said. “The financial cost to the school has been very significant, which takes money away from other areas that could be actually benefiting students more.”
Hutchison and Assistant Principal Jonathan Mach, who are working closely with Jordan to govern student safety, announced the project during the April School Leadership Team (SLT) meeting, Harrison said. As a co-department lead, Harrison was one of the first staffer to be informed of the sensors, he said.
“I previously put a fire out in our bathroom,” Harrison said. “Students used to let the paper towel hang down the dispenser, and they would light it on fire there or they would light it and throw it in the garbage can, which is why we don’t have paper towels anymore.”
Other schools in the district have already installed the sensors and found them very effective in improving safety on campus, Hutchison said.
“I imagine the rationale behind it (the sensors) is fear of being under surveillance,” Harrison said. “If students go into the bathroom and they know that the sensors are there and working, it’ll discourage them from committing a crime in the bathroom.”
Senior Miguelangel Padilla is doubtful the sensors will be an effective deterrent to smoking and vaping.
“They (smokers and vapers) would just move out of the bathrooms and onto campus,” Padilla said. “Especially since MHS can get pretty windy, you wouldn’t really be able to smell it outside. Or if you can, it’s pretty dispersed, so you won’t know where it’s coming from. Plus, I’ve seen people smoke before on the edges of campus.”
The problem of smoking and vaping among youth is chronic and has no permanent solutions, Harrison said. The more serious issue is that the secondhand smoke enclosed in tight spaces risks respiratory health and may be laced with fentanyl or other lethal drugs, he said.
“If kids are going elsewhere on campus into an open area, the secondhand smoke will not be as impactful or harmful,” Harrison said. “I don’t think kids are intentionally trying to use fentanyl. You hear about all these accidental overdoses because an illegal drug has been laced and cross-contaminated by fentanyl. God that scares me a lot.”