By: Tom Simonite & Gregory Barber Reprinted from: wired.com
A growing number of districts are deploying cameras and software to prevent attacks. But the systems are also used to monitor students—and adult critics.
On a steamy evening in May, 9,000 people filled Stingaree Stadium at Texas City High School for graduation night. A rainstorm delayed ceremonies by a half hour, but the school district’s facial recognition system didn’t miss a beat. Cameras positioned along the fence line allowed algorithms to check every face that walked in the gate.
Texas City, an oil town of 46,000, adopted facial recognition after two local tragedies. In 2017, after Hurricane Harvey damaged some of the district’s buildings, voters approved a $136 million bond measure to pay for four new schools, buses, and security upgrades. Days after that vote, the alleged shooter, a student, walked into the art block at the high school in nearby Santa Fe, Texas, with a shotgun and revolver, killing eight students and two teachers.
Rodney Cavness, Texas City’s school superintendent, reacted quickly. Three days after the Santa Fe tragedy, he hired Matranga, a Texas City native who had spent years in the Secret Service assigned to candidate and then President Obama. “I knew we needed to do something different,” Cavness says. “I hired an expert and let him do the job.”
Matranga built a small team of military veterans and got to work. The district installed hundreds more security cameras, applied bullet-resistant film to windows, and hardened classroom doors with bolts and a remote locking system. It invested in software that trawls the web and social media for mentions of the school.
Matranga says he and the district have adopted ideas from Secret Service reports on school attacks, which include recommendations for accepting tips and creating anti-bullying programs. The district uses an app called P3 Campus that allows parents and students to send anonymous reports to staff. The district also expanded its count of sheriff’s deputies to 19, from 11, and installed gun safes with AR-15s so that they could meet a heavily armed assailant on equal terms. “You meet superior firepower with superior firepower,” Matranga says. Texas City schools can now mount a security operation appropriate for a head of state. During graduation in May, four SWAT team officers waited out of view at either end of the stadium, snipers perched on rooftops, and lockboxes holding AR-15s sat on each end of the 50-yard line, just in case.
Superintendent Cavness says the community and his student advisory council are “fine” with the district’s security upgrades and use of facial recognition. When the bell at Texas City High School rang at 2:50 pm on a Friday, teens swarmed between classes, exchanging friendly headlocks and complex handshakes without visible concern for the cameras overhead, strategically positioned over stairwells and at hallway intersections.
Isabela Johnston, a senior at Texas City High School and president of the political activism club, says not all students support the enhanced security. She wrote an editorial in the school newspaper, the Sting City Press, early this year flagging ACLU concerns about the effectiveness and racial bias of facial recognition systems. In April, Johnston polled more than 300 students about the new school safety measures; many said facial recognition and AR-15s on campus made them feel unsafe. More than 40 percent said the atmosphere at school had worsened compared with previous years.
Learning in the shadow of hardened doors, gun safes, and cameras backed by facial recognition algorithms can be stressful, Johnston says. “I don’t feel necessarily any safer or more in danger, but it is a constant reminder that something could happen,” she says. “I’ve heard a lot of my peers vocalize the same thing: We’re constantly reminded this is a possibility.”
In Texas City, that reminder is vivid because of the attack that killed 10 students and staff last year at the high school in Santa Fe, a smaller city 20 minutes away. After that tragedy, James Grassmuck, who has two children in the Santa Fe Independent School District, including one at the high school, volunteered for a newly created safety and security committee. Last winter he ran successfully for a seat on the school board; his platform included a pledge to install facial recognition.
In Texas City last month, students packed the gymnasium for a pep rally before a football game against Houston’s Clear Lake. The team swaggered out wearing jeans and jerseys as the school band played brassily. Afterward, as staff members swept up stray confetti, Matranga got word that someone had thrown chocolate milk over some cheerleaders. It was a petty incident but not one that went undocumented. Cameras gazed down from each corner of the gymnasium. “We’ll pull that video on Monday,” he said.
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