SOS Group States Case to Walpole School Committee

A student group at the high school lobbying against the installation of surveillance cameras in hallways let their presence be known to the Walpole School Committee Thursday night.

The four founding members of Students Against Surveillance (SOS) stated their case to the board and made them aware of a petition being circulated around the school that had over 200 signatures as of Thursday night.

Nancy Gallivan, chair of the school committee, said they were unaware the group had planned to speak at the meeting until that day and were unprepared to give "a full answer."

The four students, Kevin Delaney, Sean Herlihy, Jon Kelland and Ross Bubly, each spoke to the committee and stated their reasons for being against the proposed security measure.

The group gave three reasons why they were against the installation of the cameras in the school hallways: They felt it invaded their privacy, they felt the estimated $36,000 to install the cameras could be better spent elsewhere and they were upset students were not made aware of the situation and were not sought for input.

In response, members of the committee applauded the efforts of the students for taking a stand and for sticking up for their peers.

“We appreciate you coming out and speaking up, talking and communicating with your colleagues and with the administration,” Superintendent Lincoln Lynch said.

“I feel good seeing you here because you reflect well on what you’ve learned from your parents and from these schools,” committee member Allan Cameron said.

However, school administrators said the measure was meant to protect students, not alienate them.

“Nobody intended this to be punitive. It’s just for the safety and security of the students,” Lynch said.

“When it comes to school security obviously it’s an important issue that has caused all school administrations to review procedures and policies and what current practices are,” Gallivan said.

“We’re doing that in a whole variety of ways and I applaud you for coming to us because it’s important to feel like these are your schools and in the case of those of you that are seniors trying to do things for kids younger than you are. So there’s no offense taken.”

In response to the petition, Gallivan said they were welcome to turn it in to the committee that evening or continue collecting signatures.

“Other than that we don’t have an official response for you. If you want to leave your petition here you’re welcome to do that. If you are hoping to gather more signatures, I would just say those kinds of things can go on forever, so within the week let’s put an end to collecting signatures, but if you want to turn it in tonight that’s fine too.”

The students said they were only a quarter of the way done collecting signatures from each grade and would take the time to collect more.

The committee members and Lynch said they were willing to provide the students with more information and further conversation on the reasoning behind the plan but did not say when they would give an official response.