The Fox C-6 School District will use sensors to better monitor restrooms in its high schools and middle schools after seeing an increase in students using vaping devices at Seckman High School during the 2021-2022 school year.
Board of Education members agreed July 19 to spend $66,961.44 to buy 56 Verdaka multipurpose sensors to be installed in all of the district’s high school and middle school restrooms
The district has two high schools – Fox High in Arnold and Seckman High in Imperial – and four middle schools – Antonia Middle in Barnhart, Fox Middle in Arnold, Ridgewood Middle west of Arnold and Seckman Middle in Imperial.
“In the spring, we had some issues with vaping,” Superintendent Paul Fregeau said during the July 19 board meeting. “We’ve been looking for solutions. We felt our kids would be safer with these devices going in.”
The devices are not cameras, but they have eight sensors that will measure the restrooms’ temperature; various particles and vapors in the air (including smoke from vaping devices); air quality; humidity; noise and motion, said JP Prezzavento, the Fox district’s communications and instructional technology coordinator.
Because the sensors monitor air quality, Fox will use Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds to cover the cost of the sensors, according to board documents.
Prezzavento said school officials believe the sensors will help the district reduce the number of students vaping in its schools.
He said sensors are expected to be delivered the second week of August and after that, an electrical contractor will install them in the bathrooms.
Prezzavento said he didn’t believe all the sensors would be in place by the first day of school on Aug. 24.
Luke Heitert, Fox’s director of information and technology, told board members that the devices were used in the Seckman Middle School restrooms during summer school.
“We did find instances of vaping in our bathrooms,” he said.
Heitert also told the board the devices will detect more than the use of vaping devices.
“They do other types of monitoring, which gives us an opportunity to monitor excessive noise and motions,” he said. “We will be able to pick up bullying or any type of fighting in bathrooms, which are not monitored in the same way that a hallway would be monitored.”
Cameras can be used in halls but not restrooms, Heitert said.
However, by using a combination of sensors in the restrooms and cameras in the halls, district officials believe they will be better able to reduce unacceptable student behavior at school, he said.
In April, the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office reported that numerous vaping devices and cartridges believed to contain THC and other possible illegal substances were found at Seckman High during last school year.
There was a report from another local news source about a student who allegedly was hospitalized with a head injury in April after using a vaping device at Seckman High and suffering a seizure, although neither district officials nor law enforcement authorities could verify that report.
However, the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office reported finding more vaping devices known as “carts” that are used to inhale marijuana and other substances last school year at Seckman High than during any previous school year.
Sheriff’s Office spokesman Grant Bissell said the problem with vaping at schools is not limited to Seckman High or the Fox School District.
Fox school board members voted 5-0 to approve the purchase of the sensors. Michelle Chamberlain and Kenny Woolsey were not at the July 19 meeting.