A bill filed in the Florida Legislature seeks to allow video and audio recordings in school classrooms, WFLA reported Sunday.
In addition, it would require teachers to wear microphones and permit parents to review video of “incidents,” the outlet said, noting that HB 1055 was sponsored by Florida Rep. Bob Rommel (R-Naples).
“It would allow school districts to install video cameras in classrooms for the purposes of recording an ‘incident’ — which it defines as abuse or neglect of a student by an employee or another student,” the article continued:
Parents of a child involved in an incident must be allowed to review the video within a week, with a stipulation that the identity of other students who aren’t involved must be blurred. Teachers in schools that adopt cameras would be required to wear microphones. Cameras must be placed at the front of the classroom, capable of monitoring video and audio from all areas except a restroom or other changing areas.
However, parents, students, and employees would have to be told prior to the cameras being installed in the room.
Principals would be given charge of recordings, and they must be retained for three months or “until the conclusion of any investigation or any administrative or legal proceedings.”
Once those are finished, the video footage would be destroyed.
“The cameras cannot be livestreamed or continually monitored, and videos cannot be used for teacher evaluations,” the WFLA report said, adding, “The law would require all school districts to complete and vote on whether to implement classroom cameras by Jan. 1, 2023.”
“Six months ago … people were calling my show and talking to me about what they were seeing on the monitor going on with their kids as a result of the pandemic,” Levin shared. “The vast majority people in this country would never have heard of critical race theory but for the pandemic [and] home teaching, where the parents are looking in the monitor and going, ‘What the hell did that teacher just say to my kid?’ which is why I now support cameras in the classroom and have been pushing for that for two months.”
He added, “I figure if courtrooms and cops can have [cameras], union members with the NEA [National Education Association] and the AFT [American Federation of Teachers] should have them in the classroom.”
In December, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) announced what his office called a “first of its kind in the nation” legislation to fight woke corporations and Marxist ideologies such as Critical Race Theory (CRT) in schools and places of employment in the state.