Archive: Opinions

I’m a sociologist, and Professor of Communication at the University at Buffalo. I’ve lived in Lansing for over 20 years, and sent four of my children to Lansing schools. Like many others, I chose to live in Lansing because of the schools.

Now, however, the administration is proposing a very serious change in the culture of the high school by installing cameras to watch the students. As a sociologist with many years experience, I know that living under surveillance will bring about a very serious and negative change in the culture of the school. Introducing cameras is a last-ditch effort to maintain order in a system that is out of control.

Whenever a major social change like this one is proposed, it’s necessary to show that there exists a grave harm, that that harm is inherent in the status quo, and that the proposed solution is necessary and won’t create worse harm than it’s designed to cure. None of that has been done.

Has anyone seriously proposed that the current students are so much worse than the many generations of students who’ve passed through Lansing for these many years that they can no longer be trusted? Lansing has been one of the best high schools in Central New York for many decades without cameras. Before we are willing to suffer the chilling effects that a surveillance system will certainly produce, we need some real evidence that conditions in the school have deteriorated gravely.

My own belief is that our students today are just as wonderful as they have always been. There's no need to monitor our students with surveillance cameras, and they will cause serious negative effects on our children.

Joe Woelfel
Lansing, New York

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