Cypress and Loara high schools will install the sensors in their student bathrooms and locker rooms.
“The sensors are connected to apps on our administrators’ phones,” Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services Jaron Fried said at a March board meeting approving the sensors. “So if something alerts, they notice right away — they can go to the restrooms. If they don’t get there in time, they have access to cameras to see when students entered or left the restrooms.”
The HALO smart sensors the district will buy and install can give school officials alerts on their phones when they detect vaping or other tobacco products and certain loud noises such as gunshots or fights. The company behind the sensors says it can detect when they are tampered with and when vaping is attempted to be masked with aerosols such as cologne.
Robert Saldivar, the district’s executive director of educational services, said all bathrooms have cameras outside them. Because the sensors integrate into the existing camera system, school officials will be able to identify who was in the restroom when the sensor went off by seeing who entered or left.
The sensors don’t record audio or video, according to the company’s webpage.
The equipment will cost the district $75,120 to install. The district will spend about $4,000 annually on the systems at both schools.
Fried said if the program is successful, and if the board wishes, the district will be able to install the sensors throughout its campuses. Fried said the district once used dogs, but those were only on campuses once a month.
“This is every day,” Fried said.
John Bautista, a spokesperson for the district, said the sensors have not been installed yet at the schools and there is no additional information to share at this time.
The HALO sensors have been installed at schools throughout the country over recent years to crack down on vaping use.
E-cigarettes remain the most commonly used tobacco product among children in the United States, according to a survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration, and about 1.2 million U.S. students in high school use e-cigarettes or almost 8 percent of all students.
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