Thumbnail photo by Lindsay Fox via Wikimedia Commons. Creative Commons License
A steady increase in vaping over about three years at Crescent Elk Middle School prompted its vice principal to propose using a combination of environmental sensors and cameras to catch students who might be partaking.
Lucas O’Laughlin, who is also the dean of students, said he and Principal Paige Swan have collected 30-to-40 e-cigarette devices this year. They’re either confiscated from a student who’s been caught or a student found them and turned them in, he said.
The proliferation of vaping has also caused damage to Crescent Elk’s restrooms, O’Laughlin told the Del Norte Unified School District Board of Trustees on Thursday.
“I can’t even count the facilities damage that vapes have caused at our site because kids flush them down toilets,” he said. “Roto Rooter or maintenance (have had) to pull out five to six vapes at one time.”
Trustees unanimously approved installing Verkada environmental sensors and cameras in and around the student restrooms at Crescent Elk Middle School. According to Ryan Bahten, the Del Norte County Office of Education’s director of information and network services, when an environmental sensor detects a vape hit in the restroom, there will be a simultaneous video recording so “you can know who was in there at that time.”
Bahten said he and his staff don’t normally run network cable in bathrooms. It’s not something that the district had the infrastructure for, especially in a school that was built in the 1920s, he said, adding that this was the reason for the $88,811.80 price tag for the sensors and cameras.
The environmental sensors aren’t recording anything, O’Laughlin said, and the cameras are located outside the bathroom. The school was able to bill MediCal for the hardware purchase, he said.
Local health and wellness advocates and educators have been concerned over the prevalence of e-cigarette use among Del Norte teens for several years. In March 2022, members of a Del Norte High School student group, Standing Together Overcoming addiction with A Radical Movement, or STORM, petitioned county supervisors and Crescent City Councilors to ban flavored vapes. Those flavors, including bubblegum, strawberry kiwi and butterscotch, are what get youth addicted to e-cigarettes, they said.
The Del Norte County Board of Supervisors approved a tobacco retail license ordinance in August 2022. It took the Crescent City Council another year to approve their ordinance. Both sets of regulations lacked a flavor ban, however, since California already banned them.
On Thursday, O’Laughlin told trustees that vaping continues to be a problem at Del Norte High School, one he’s hoping to get ahead of by curbing the practice at the middle school.
When he was researching the use of environmental sensors, O’Laughlin said he learned that they were installed in two high school bathrooms, one for boys and one for girls. According to his research, those sensors at the high school have had 143 detections during the month of December. There are usually 200 detections of someone taking a hit off an e-cigarette every month when school is in session, O’Laughlin said.
“The way I look at it is that 3/4ths of the high school population are Crescent Elk students,” he said. “Those students in the high school bathrooms are a product of our school.”
The environmental sensors will be installed in every bathroom as well as the locker rooms on the Crescent Elk campus. According to O’Laughlin, when a sensor goes off, staff can use it and the cameras around the restroom to determine how many students are in there and who they are. Crescent Elk staff can then reach out to parents, O’Laughlin said.
The environmental sensors can detect and alert for several different chemicals, including carbon monoxide, Bahten said. Though they will be caged off, they can also alert staff when they’ve been tampered with, he said.
The school plans to address the issue by holding small-group interventions and educating both students and parents, O’Laughlin said.
The goal at Crescent Elk is not to be punitive, though students who continue to vape may face “some more disciplinary action,” DNUSD Superintendent Jeff Harris told trustees. The sensors and cameras may also empower other students to speak out if they’re in an unwanted situation, he said.
“It empowers them to say, ‘I don’t want this, those vape sensors are out there, I don’t want to get caught,’ and then turn around and walk out,” Harris said. “To help them with those refusal skills.”
In response to a comment from DNUSD Board President Charlaine Mazzei, O’Laughlin said that the school plans to communicate with parents and students that they are using environmental sensors to curb “the pandemic of vape use at school.”
