Education
Education

Legislation promotes video monitoring of special education students

By Ty Tagami
March 2, 2016

Special education students could have video cameras monitoring their classrooms under legislation that got a hearing in the Georgia Senate Wednesday.

House Bill 614 has already passed the House. There was no vote during Wednesday's hearing in the Senate Education and Youth committee, where Rep. Valencia Stovall, D-Lake City, the bill's author, said the bill clarifies that schools can use cameras to monitor special education classrooms, both to protect the students from abuse and the teachers from accusations of abuse.

“The cameras are not Big Brother, but they will serve as an” objective “eye,” she said.

Yvette Pegues, with the Georgia Council on Developmental Disabilities and a former teacher of the disabled, said the legislation is a good idea. Jane Robbins, an Atlanta-based senior fellow with the American Principles Project, a Washington, D.C. think tank, asked that parents approve the monitoring of their kids and that the videos be destroyed after a period of time.

“I just don’t think it should be in the record forever,” she said.

About the Author

Ty Tagami is a staff writer for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Since joining the newspaper in 2002, he has written about everything from hurricanes to homelessness. He has deep experience covering local government and education, and can often be found under the Gold Dome when lawmakers meet or in a school somewhere in the state.

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