New Harford County Board Of Education Holds First Meeting, Makes Changes To Video Policy

HARFORD COUNTY - On Monday evening, the newly elected members of the Harford County Board of Education held their first meeting.

The new board, which includes Carol Mueller, Wade Sewell, Joyce Herold, Roy Philips, Diane Alvarez, Melissa Hahn, Carol Bruce, and Denise Perry, started the meeting by nominating and electing Mueller and Sewell as its president and vice president.

The board briefly heard public comments before moving on to its one agenda item for the meeting. The board considered changes to the policy that covers the use of cameras on school grounds and school buses as a tool for school safety.

The original school video surveillance policy was adopted in November 2004. Since then, the amount of photo and video-enabled devices on school campuses has increased dramatically. The county and board have also changed the laws and regulations regarding the retention and disclosure of video records, according to agenda documents.

The Aegis reports that “the updated policy addresses questions regarding the length of time videos are required to be preserved, when videos may be shared with parents or other third parties in various situations, the protection of personally identifiable information included in a video, when it is necessary for a video to be retained or shared and more.”

The new policy was passed unanimously by the board as their first significant measure since taking office.