Prior to COVID-19 the #1 issue the School Principals brought up when asked about non-instructional technology was combating vaping. Its was prevalent problem even in elementary schools prior to COVID-19 and will likely rocket back to the top of the list after students return to in-person education.
Vaping is a multi-faceted problem, requiring part discipline and part educational guidance. However before any intervention can occur one has to figure out who to target. The technological disadvantage is that vaping most often occurs where cameras can not go. This is where chemical sensors come into play. By using sensors to detect the chemical traces of smoking and vaping, school administrators can be alerted when and where incidents occur. However, simply responding on demand to an incident isn’t as easy as it sounds. What generally happens when a faculty member or resource officer rushes to investigate and or catch them in the act is that the student(s) both figuratively and literally flush the evidence. This obviously creates an entirely different problem. Additionally, students quickly learn that they are being monitored and try to destroy the sensors.
The solution is using software that correlates events through multiple sources that over time can determine who to target for intervention. Paliton has multiple options both for modular solutions and all-in-one packages.
How it works:
Cameras are strategically placed in hallways near the entrances to bathrooms and other places where cameras are expressly prohibited. Chemical sensors are placed inside the rooms. When a sensor is silently triggered, camera footage both leading up to and after the incident is copied into a incident record. Video analysis will catalog each person’s face, with or without Personally Identifiable Information. On subsequent alerts, the software will score re-occurrences of certain faces entering and exiting the room. This will eventually identify who the most likely perpetrators are and even predict a pattern of when they are most likely to do it. This allows administrtaor to have available when needed and to target the individual with educational guidance intervention. It is an approach that has proven more effective that simple discipline and far less expensive than trying to catch the student in the act.
