WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Mount Greylock Regional School Committee last week agreed to share security camera footage from its three schools with local law enforcement in the event of an emergency.

 

Superintendent Joseph Bergeron brought the committee a proposal for memorandums of understanding between the district and the police departments in Lanesborough and Williamstown.

 

The proposed document cites potential emergencies ranging from "introducers on school grounds" to "natural disasters requiring coordinated response," and indicates that surveillance video access is, "intended to enhance the safety and security of students, staff and the broader community."

 

Bergeron told the panel that he would seek one change in the draft MOU prepared by the district's counsel in order to make the agreement more practical to implement.

 

"Those draft agreements reference that in the event of an emergency, the superintendent or principal, in that moment, will provide access to the police for them to see what is happening within the building," Bergeron said.

 

"I have plenty of faith and confidence in our legal counsel, but I would like to have a different take, because in the event of an emergency prioritizing going into a piece of software, creating an account and having police access it will take a lot of time."

 

The solution, Bergeron said, is to create accounts for the Lanesborough Police Department (for Lanesborough Elementary School) and Williamstown Police Department (for WES and Mount Greylock Regional School) with the understanding that the police will only use them during an emergency.

 

"And we create accountability, such that we, periodically, monitor who is accessing their accounts within our systems," Bergeron said. "If those accounts were ever utilized outside an emergency context, we would have a conversation and consider bringing that forward to revoke it."

 

Bergeron said he did not have reason to believe the access would be used improperly, "but [monitoring] is something I know is important to have in the realm of accountability."

 

In answers to questions from members of the committee, Bergeron said the security camera system used by the district does not have the capability to automatically notify system administrators like himself whenever an account is used. But it does have the capability to generate reports on demand that detail what accounts accessed the system and when.

 

"The way that our cameras are accessed is via a web application," Bergeron said. "You log in using an account that is secured by two-factor authentication. Once you log in, that generates an access log that we, as super administrators on the district side, can see who logged in and when. The accountability would be by saying, 'We see when you logged in there was no emergency happening, so we're asking why you logged in.' That would lead us down the road of potentially taking the next step."

 

School Committee member Carolyn Greene asked about the implications of allowing non-district personnel to access the cameras.

 

"I have concerns … about opening the door for surveillance," Greene said. "Who is going to have access? Is it the police chief in each town? Is it the whole department? I don't know how our families are going to feel, and do [officers] have the ability to, if it's any officer, share that access with other officers who may be in town through their phones or their computers? It just makes me uneasy for a number of reasons."

 

Bergeron said allowing access to law enforcement 24/7 is not ideal. But given the limitations of the security system, monitoring access is the only way to ensure it is being accessed only when necessary.

 

"In an ideal world, we would provide an account, but the minute it was utilized, we'd receive a notification, so we can say, 'Gosh, we need to jump in and shut this down because there is no emergency,' " Bergeron said. "Unfortunately, the software does not have that capability. We're left with, 'What is the next best thing?'

 

"I have felt, honestly, stuck between: If there was an emergency I'd feel terrible if we did not have this access available, but, at the same time, understanding the questions of, 'How do we make sure it's utilized in ways we don't want it to be utilized?' "

 

Bergeron did not get into specifics of how often he or other administrators — the building principals or the district's director of operations — will check reports to see when the system is accessed, but he said that a commitment to running logs daily might be "onerous."

 

The memorandums of understanding would require the school district to document all instances of video access and would restrict how images from the security cameras could be used.

 

"Video feed access is strictly limited to the resolution of the emergency and may not be

used for any other purpose without explicit, written consent from the District or as may be

required by a Court Order," the document reads, continuing, "No recordings or screenshots of the live feed will be retained by the [WPD and LPD] unless otherwise required by law and explicitly authorized by the Superintendent."

 

The six members of the School Committee at last Thursday's meeting voted unanimously to authorize Bergeron to enter the memorandum of understanding with each police department as he described it.

 

"I don't want to make the police into bad guys at all," Greene said prior to the vote. "That's not my intention here. My concern is for folks in our community who might be feeling particularly vulnerable to police oversight, for whatever reason. This is not meant to be a tool for oversight. This is meant to be a tool for use in emergencies only.

 

"I guess I can put my concerns where they need to be and give this a try. As long as it does have some provision for revoking access that does not get us into legal trouble."

 

In other business on Thursday night, the School Committee:

 

• Unanimously voted to offer the full-time superintendent position to Bergeron and, after a brief executive session, voted to ratify a contract for him to serve in that capacity.

 

• Heard an explanation of Bergeron's goals for the district for the next three years. He explained steps he plans to take to increase the sense of belonging for students, faculty and staff, make progress in students' achievement in math and literacy and "develop a shared vision across stakeholder groups for what success looks like in our district."

 

• Heard a report from Mount Greylock's director of special education about the district's summer programming, which served 74 students pre-K through 12th grade on district campuses and Camp Russell in Richmond.

 

• Adopted a revised district policy on field trips.