Smart security light plan for Boulder Hill, Long Beach schools questioned

A proposal to install two smart lights to improve security and reduce energy costs at Long Beach Elementary School and Boulder Hill Elementary School was presented to the Oswego School District Board of Education on Tuesday, Oct. 9.

The project, as explained by OSD 308's Director of Operations Rob Allison and Sandra Goeken Miles of GoGreenLED, would be part of the national rollout for tje Energy Relamp Program, created to "educate and implement energy efficient programs in schools nationwide at no out of budget cost for the schools."

According to the presentation at Tuesday's meeting, the program would result in a 50-70 percent reduction in the district's energy and maintenance costs, and savings of 11 percent on energy.

"When you use light that's already there, you have a power source. It's already there in your street lighting, in your outdoor lighting. We simply tap into that power source, and incorporate the capabilities of these new cameras," Miles, an Oswego resident, said.

As Allison explained, the smart lights provided by the program have features for increasing public safety, including: gunshot detection and localization, video surveillance and license plate recognition.

"It's not just the instantaneous problem and the prevention of it," Miles said. "To me it's a form of preventing bad things from happening in our area when the word gets out that we're watching and the records are being kept."

Security at the two schools, located in the unincorporated Boulder Hill subdivision, has been a concern to the community this year after two incidents of gun violence that occurred in late January near Long Beach School. According to Allison, Oswego Township officials have had discussions with the Kendall County Sheriff's Office, which has reportedly expressed support for the initiative. No representative from the Kendall County Sheriff's Office or the township was present at the Oct. 9 meeting.

Though Miles described the cameras as, "super, super low-cost," she said each would start at $1,000 per camera, and that other financing methods are available for the project. Allison stated that the cost to the district would be dependent on several factors, including whether the cameras would run on Wi-Fi, or cable. Running cable outside of the buildings would increase the cost by $3,000 to $5,000.

While board members appeared supportive of the proposal, most had questions regarding the process and management.

Board President Brad Banks questioned why only Long Beach and Boulder Hill were chosen, citing a threat made at Oswego High School that day. Allison said that he couldn't speak to that reason, as the schools were selected by the township. When asked if the program would expand to the entire district, Allison said that the decision would most likely rest with the board.

Board Vice President Lauri Doyle raised questions over the matter of student and faculty privacy, given the footage that would be recorded by camera in the lights.

"What we're talking about; adding in sensors, cameras, and whatnot, we don't even necessarily have policies in place to allow this for student privacy," she said. "So I kind of feel like any discussion of the future capabilities of these, would seriously need some policy protection before we would even want to go forward with pricing."

Surveillance, Miles said, was analytic-based, meaning that the information was "push-data", that would only include the location of an incident, not the person responsible. The system would have the ability to access a camera that could analyze a problem without sending data to a storage system.

"There's nobody watching screens to watch what everybody is doing," she said.

Doyle also questioned who would take custody of the information recorded by the cameras.

"I start to look at this whole system as part of a student security issue, rather than just a public works issue, and my concern would be one...why these particular schools, and two, why are we not hearing from the township about this before we're hearing from a vendor?"

Township officials were not in attendance at the meeting, as the township board had their own meeting that night.

If the district approves the intergovernmental agreement, the first phase of installation would be limited to lighting and cameras. No information was provided on any futurephases. Under the proposed agreement, the Township Road District would purchase smart lights and provide the labor and materials for installation, as well as ongoing maintenance as needed; OSD 308 would provide labor and materials to supply power and technology for the smart lights at each school, as well as a DVR and other technology for recording information.

Board member Brent Lightfoot also questioned the cost of the program and future phases, citing the district's ongoing budget crisis. "We just spent 20, 25 minutes at the beginning of this meeting talking about how broke we are. I know you think $1,000 cameras are inconsequential...it's hard for me as a board member to say, 'Yep, that's fine, we'll buy a DVR and we'll pay - worst case scenario - $3,500 per location to trench cable', when we're cutting left and right in every possible place."

"I also feel ike this is the solution to a problem that doesn't exist," Lightfoot said. "I understand the concept - the concept is maybe it could help deter something, maybe it could help the police catch something faster."

He asked the board how many active shooting events had taken place on the grounds of the two schools, to which the answer was zero.

Lightfoot also called for Kendall County Sheriff Dwight Baird to come before the board and discuss his office's support for the proposal, as well as how the cameras would tie into the county's policing efforts. By extension, Lightfoot said, the district should also speak with the Oswego Police Department.