 |
|
|
|
|
Club makes wants more security at Homestead
By SCOTT STIENBERG
If all goes well and according to plan, Homestead High School will have four security cameras in its main quad by Feb. 23, according to a club leader of the Future Business Leaders of America.
On Feb. 13, Cory Reese and other Homestead club members met with Principal Allan Montgomery, offering what amounted to a boardroom pitch on their security camera project.
Montgomery has said he is interested in a trial run of the security system so long as it has the approval of Pete Tuwana, head of technology services for the Fremont High School district, and John Lazzano, student campus liaison security officer.
The Future Business Leaders of America plans to meet with Tuwana at the district offices Feb. 14, and will hold a subsequent meeting with Lazzano if Tuwana permits the system.
Reese, who is 16 and vice president of the Partnership with Business project, said the ambition for the system was to work with a local business to understand the business environment.
Working in conjunction with UVEXS of Sunnyvale, 23 of the student group's members interviewed companies, studied the industry dynamics of camera systems and wrote a business analysis.
And the end product is a test plan, two free months of camera usage for Homestead, four digital, 3-inch cameras with 12-mm zoom lenses placed surreptitiously around the main quad in hopes of monitoring a sometimes-indecorous student population.
The cameras channel to a digital server, which then interfaces with personal computers. Administrators, thus, would be able to watch the comings and goings of students on the main quad from their office monitors.
"A few students do not like the idea of cameras on campus," Reese said. "They thought it was a violation of their right to privacy."
But he asserted there is a rationale for the system. "As a prank last year seniors knocked over scaffolding in the main quad and put syrup and fertilizer compound on the stairs.
"Lynbrook [High School], which has a security system in place, has caught bicycle theft with the cameras," he added.
The Future Business Leaders of America will present the results of the project as a 10-minute oral report to a panel of judges in an April competition in Irvine. If the team places first or second, it advances to the national competition in Nashville, Texas.
|
|
|
|
Cupertino, California Since 1947
