LaSalle Parish School Board approves installation of new security systems

JENA, La. (KNOE) - The LaSalle Parish School Board approved for the school system to make purchases of new surveillance cameras to go inside all nine schools in an April school board meeting.

The school system’s new superintendent, Jon Garrett, began in his role on May 1, 2023. Garrett says the school system spent just under $900,000 on the cameras, which included the purchase of close to 270 cameras: 119 going inside the schools and 150 placed on the exterior part of the buildings.

“We sat down, and we started coming up with a plan on what we wanted to do, and then we had a large group of us that went and walked around each one of our schools to see where we needed to improve; each one of our schools; and the first part of that plan was to get cameras for each one of them,” says Garrett.

According to Garrett, the new equipment allows the schools to search and perform tasks that the older systems could not do.

“Well, one of the biggest things - is the clarity of the pictures that they provide for us, but then they also go into more detail. You can actually search within the pictures to find specific things, and it just allows them to hone in a lot more on what they’re looking for,” says Garrett.

Garrett says he believes the new updates to the camera systems will help teachers and administrators feel safer while teaching students and relieve them from worries of possible harm.

“I think parents, community members; everybody’s going to feel better about it for sure, but for teachers in particular, we want them to just be worried about teaching kids every day, and this will go a long way towards doing that,” says Garrett.

Garrett says installation will begin soon, and the school system expects all cameras to be installed by June 30, 2023.

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