Grant for Marblehead school cameras causes a hot debate

MARBLEHEAD – Marblehead is receiving $2.23 million in state and federal grants this year, including $1 million in grants for special education programs and $403,000 for the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity (METCO) program, but the most hotly discussed grant at Thursday?s School Committee meeting was the $44,000 Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grant, which will mostly be used to buy security cameras for Marblehead High.Superintendent of Schools Greg Maass said he walked around all the town schools on Labor Day and saw “a great deal of vandalism” at Marblehead High, which he called “our most costly investment.”?Technology can protect students and help us secure that investment,” he said. “If we know (vandalism cost) $30,000 last year and we don?t have the resources to post a guard at each door we can use technology.”?What if something happened and we didn?t have a pro-active approach?” Maass asked.Committee member Jonathan Lederman, who serves on the Security Subcommittee that obtained the grant, said the cameras would “return far more” that the town?s matching investment.?I?d like to know if anyone can guarantee we will save $30,000 in vandalism costs,” said committee member Thomas Connolly. Connolly asked about future maintenance costs and told his colleagues he has not heard “one positive comment” about the cameras from the community.?Real courage is rejecting security blankets and putting faith in human discipline,” he said.Maass said he has had calls on both sides of this issue. “My experience is that vandalism disciplinary referrals go down when cameras like these are used,” he said.Committee member Dick Nohelty pointed out that ATM devices and supermarkets use security cameras. However, he questioned the lack of warning about the $44,000 grant, which must be matched this year by $44,000 from the school budget.Lederman told his colleagues the application for the grant was “somewhat of a longshot” and the subcommittee didn?t expect the application to be successful.Chairman Eurim Chun asked Maass to come back to the committee with a recommendation on the $44,000.