Camera found in high school bathroom
Jasper County Middle School student Mack Bedor is in trouble for stealing school property. Bedor found a video camera in one of the school bathrooms and took it home to show to his mother.
Bedor found the camera after noticing a cut out in the bathroom ceiling. The only person apparently aware of the camera was the high school principal, Mr. Fore.
Bedor received a five-day suspension. Says his mother, Cindy Champion, “My opinion is that he did the right thing.”
According to the Bibb County district attorney, cameras are legal in school restrooms because schools have more leeway on privacy issues.
That is one district attorney’s opinion. There are all kinds of federal laws about insuring students’ of any age privacy. For instance it is illegal for a teacher to do a full body search without meeting specific conditions, one of them being a second adult must be present and both adults must be the same gender.
How do we know that the camera won’t be pointed so that the pedophile who is on the staff isn’t looking at penis’ undergoing puberty?
If cameras are allowed in restrooms, first the parents and students need to be made aware. Second, sound guarantees that only the entrance and sink area can be viewed by the camera. Third, it needs to be part of the policy who can and who can’t view this recording.
It is highly non professional to have a hidden cammara in any restroom period. Also consider that adults use the school toilets as well. Most of the time not when students are present. It has been esstablished that there is no law forbidding adults and students using the same restroom. That would be almost impossible to enforce if the football team and coaches were given tickets to see a college football game. It is impossible at the high school stadium as well. Guys of all ages and positions in life use the same men’s restroom at the stadium,
I agree that the boy should not have removed the camera. It would have been better to alert his parents and his parents made a surprise visit demanding to see exactly what the camera is recording, with no one using the facilities at the precise moment.
It is possible that the principal was a peeping Tom and now the evidence is gone.
Had I been the principal I would have been tempted to tell the parents that the camera would be removed and let’s forget this happened. I know that may not be professional either, but I would have been tempted to do that.