BURLINGTON, Iowa – Administrators in all of the Burlington Community School District’s schools will be wearing body cameras for the upcoming school year, adding to existing surveillance on campuses and in buses.

“Earlier this year, we had a child claim that one of our administrators kicked him repeatedly … and by using fixed cameras in the building, we were able to clearly understand and see the child was not kicked,” superintendent Pat Coen told Iowa Public Radio.

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Coen said the incident convinced school officials body cameras might be a good idea, so they bought 15 at roughly $100 each. The small cameras, which clip to a tie, shirt, or pocket, will be distributed to principals and assistant principals in all of the district’s schools, and two will be on reserve, Coen told KWQC 6.

“We want to make sure that we’re treating people with dignity, honor and respect … and this is a way to say, are we doing that, and to kind of check ourselves,” Coen said.

“After a critical event or any type of event, you’re going to ask yourself, ‘What went well and what didn’t? What can we do better next time?’ then make those adjustments,” he said. “That falls into our growth model, which is we don’t want to become stagnant in what we do, we want to always be evaluating, assessing, planning and implementing.”

District technology officer Will Brackett and high school teacher Jared Gibbons think there will be benefits to recording interactions with administrators.

“I could be as simple as ‘he said, she said’ so let’s look at the video, could something as, ‘hey, you did this,’ let’s go back and review and could you have done something better?” Brackett said.

“It’ll really show the truth in the situations that come up instead of going off what people say,” Gibbons told KWQC 6.

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Coen told Iowa Public Radio administrators’ use of the body cameras will be optional.

“If the administrator feels like the camera will be a detriment, it will not be used,” he said.

Regardless, some think the whole idea is a bad one.

Forbes columnist Matthew Feeney explained why body cameras on school officials is much different than body cameras on police officers.

“The truth is, police officers and teachers have very different jobs that do not require the same approaches to oversight and accountability. Police officers are armed public servants tasked with protecting our rights. Teachers and school administrators educate children,” Feeney wrote.

Besides, Burlington school officials were able to get to the bottom of the recent kicking debacle by relying on the district’s existing surveillance, not body cameras, he wrote.

“Many schools already have security cameras and some schools have gone even further, installing metal detectors and deploying guards. There is no clear evidence that these measures are effective in preventing school violence, which has been in decline for years. In fact, there is evidence that these measures increase fear of crime among students and negatively impact how safe children feel at school,” Feeney argued.

But there’s other issued associated with increased student surveillance, as well.

Cameras and other security measures have led to student arrests for fairly innocuous infractions, and may also result in a decrease in reported abuse.

“Beyond desensitizing American children to Big Brother, the widespread use of body cameras in schools could have a negative impact on children being abused at home or bullied in school,” Feeney wrote.

“If a principal is wearing a body camera, will a student be more or less likely to discuss abuse or bullying? The release, whether intended or not, of footage showing a student discussing bullying at school or domestic abuse could have devastating effects on the student,” he added.

“Teachers and school administrators do have an obligation to keep students safe, but there are real risks in using technology best suited for law enforcement in order to achieve that end.”