T-R PHOTO BY NICK BAUR Director of Technology Amy Harmsen (right) came before the Marshalltown School Board at their regular meeting Monday, Dec. 5 seeking the approval of $130,720.87 for the purchase and installation of vape detectors at multiple district buildings.

Vape detectors will soon be coming to Marshalltown Community School District buildings after Monday’s school board meeting saw the board vote unanimously to approve the purchase and installation of Halo 3C sensors in the Marshalltown High School, Miller Middle School, Lenihan Intermediate School, and Marshalltown Learning Academy.

Director of Technology Amy Harmsen came before the board seeking approval for the purchase and installation of 73 Halo 3C vape sensors to be placed in the district buildings at a total cost of $130,720.87.

The request comes at a time when schools across the country are struggling to grapple with the use of vape products during the school day inside school buildings, often in bathrooms or areas away from adult supervision.

“It’s a national issue that we’re dealing with as well here in Marshalltown, where we have the issue where students can go in bathrooms, in places that we can’t easily monitor,” Harmsen said. “This is a way to, if not monitor, at least be able to set up an audible alarm to say that something is sensed in this area, you might want to think about evacuating the area.”

The Halo 3C sensors tout the ability to monitor privacy areas without the use of cameras and audio recorders and without capturing any personally identifiable information.

It functions similarly to smoke detectors by monitoring abnormalities in the air and subsequently creating a loud noise once it detects said abnormalities.

Once triggered, it would alert certain faculty members by email or text message sharing the location of the tripped alarm.

The detectors can also be integrated into the school’s surveillance system to automatically turn on relevant cameras in the building to identify students partaking in potential vaping violations.

However, as Harmsen explained, the alarm and subsequent footage would only provide a part of the larger case against students who may trigger the sensor.

“Even if the camera did go off, a group of kids came out of the bathroom because a sensor went off, it does not mean that every kid would be searched (and) interrogated as part of an investigation,” she said. “We just want to make sure that’s very clear that might be a piece of the puzzle in the future, but that wouldn’t be any sort of big smoking gun, if you will.”

While the detectors do function like smoke alarms with their loud, persistent noise, it would not set off any type of evacuation or schoolwide alarm system.

“It would just hopefully deter students from wanting to linger in that area,” Harmsen said. “Some of those things, we would still need to talk to building administrators on how you want to handle that, but no matter what we believe an alarm will deter the behavior.”

Harmsen expects to have the vape detectors installed within “the next few months,” barring any unforeseen circumstances, and most likely before the end of the school year.

Additionally, during the meeting, Alicia Hunter, a mother of two students, spoke during public comment on behalf of a group of parents requesting the elimination of block scheduling at Miller Middle School.

Hunter and the group of parents emailed a letter to school board members on Aug. 10 of this year, communicating their desire to see block scheduling removed from the curriculum at the school by the second semester.

Yet, after a meeting with Miller Middle School administration on Aug. 29, and the administration agreeing to survey enrolled students, faculty, and parents during Thanksgiving break about possible changes, Hunter told the board that parents have not yet seen this survey, and some parents are uneasy about the impacts of block scheduling on their children.

“We have yet to see a survey be issued,” Hunter said. “Some parents feel that block scheduling is negatively affecting our children’s learning and desire to go to school. We have heard that school staff have noticed some attendance trends on the different A&B days because of how schedules are set up. Many of our students dislike one day more than the other, and we do understand that it’s not uncommon for kids not to like a certain class, but 45 minutes versus 75 minutes in class does make a big difference in the student’s overall desire to attend school on a particular day.”

As Hunter explained, they believe the elimination of block scheduling would fit into the core philosophies of the district.

“The district’s priorities state that mental health and achievement gaps from loss of in-person instruction are the focus this year,” she continued. “If this was the case, we would love to see a return to a regular school [schedule] to ensure that mental health and academic achievement is the most important focus. The loss of in person instruction and learning is continuing by not having core subjects taught every day.”

The board did not respond and took no action on Hunter’s public comment.

In other business, the board;

• Heard the Student School Board Representative update;

• Received a presentation on coding education from Lenihan Intermediate School;

• Approved 28 mid-year senior early graduations and three year early juniors, all subject to the successful completion of all graduation requirements;

• Recognized Dr. William Flemming from the University of Northern Iowa for a donation of $1,500 for ongoing research and data collection to gauge the impact of Marshalltown Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP) program;

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Contact Nick Baur at 641-753-6611 or nbaur@timesrepublican.com.