With threats on several Iowa school districts in recent weeks, bringing lockdowns and closures that impacted thousands of students, administrators across the state are considering ways to further tighten security. The Hudson Community School District is using state funding to invest in more video cameras for each campus.
Superintendent Tony Voss says they are planning to double the number of cameras now being used by the start of the 2024 academic year.
“Every school is going to be approaching this differently,” Voss says. “Every school has needs that are unique to their own setting. I think it gives peace of mind and provides an extra layer of security to the district.” Voss says the Hudson district has a security camera system in place now, but it’s become tough to manage as it was patched together.
“It’s a system that we built ourselves, and as we’ve gone throughout the years, we’ve said, ‘Hey, it’d sure be nice to have a camera in Location X.’ So we’d go and buy a camera and put it in Location X and away we would go,” Voss says. “So we’ve had them, but they haven’t been as widespread as we will have them with this grant.”
That grant is from the Iowa Department of Homeland Security, specifically for cameras.
(By Grant Winterer, Iowa Public Radio)