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Just after lunch, Principal Joe Rodkey patrols the halls of Massaponax High School in Spotsylvania County.
He checks exterior doors to see if they're locked. There is only one unlocked door in the building, all 263,000 square feet of it, he says. All who enter that door must check in with the receptionist who sits in front of it.
Except today.
A door leading to the outdoor senior lunch area is ajar--not good.
"One time is too many," he said.
With 89 exterior doors, 125 acres of campus and more than 2,000 people in the building, Rodkey and school personnel have a lot of ground to cover.
But they get help: a $1.2-million initiative to install cameras in all Spotsylvania schools three years ago has shortened the investigative process for identifying perpetrators of on-campus offenses, Rodkey said.
School administrators and the Spotsylvania Sheriff's Office have online access to the cameras, which archive each day.
"What would take us two or three days in the past now can take an hour or two to get to the bottom of it if it's on film," Rodkey said. "Videos don't lie."
Throughout the region, school administrators hail school resource officers and video cameras as among the best preventive security measures.
The April shooting at Virginia Tech brought school safety concerns back into the spotlight. But for Stafford County, a previous high-profile school shooting prompted the addition of surveillance cameras in schools: Columbine.
"Columbine was a turning point in all school security," said Greg Martin, Stafford schools' safety, security and risk management specialist.
Soon after the incident, the county implemented new security measures, and cameras were among the first additions.
Brett Schlegel, Spotsylvania's coordinator of school safety, said the implementation of cameras and resource officers weren't brought on by one big event. Rather, ensuring safety is an ongoing effort.
About 50 school-related shootings have occurred since Columbine in 1999, with five on college campuses, according to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
Schlegel said the Virginia Tech shooting has changed the way schools approach safety.
"After every incident there's something that can be learned from that," he said. "We've been concerned about school safety long before Virginia Tech."
In Spotsylvania, resource officers are in every high school and middle school, and check on elementary schools.
The city of Fredericksburg uses security cameras in its two newest schools, Lafayette Upper Elementary School and James Monroe High School. The cameras cost about $800,000. Two resource officers patrol city schools.
Stafford County uses more than 800 cameras in its schools, an effort that cost more than $1 million. In the future, the county hopes to have 96 cameras in each high school, 64 in middle schools and 32 in elementary schools, Martin said.
Each of Stafford's five high schools has a school resource officer, and two roam the middle schools.
As cameras roll at Massaponax, Rodkey does his part by staying visible.
He passes the cafeteria, where students are on cleaning duty.
"Hi, Mr. Rodkey," a student says, waving. Rodkey says hello. The principal knows his name as well as those of other students he sees that day.
"I have to be out and about," he said.
He browses the online video archive to see the morning's activities. All clear.
But if a fight had broken out within a camera's view, he would've been able to go to the archive and pinpoint who started it, Rodkey says.
It's good news for the region: fighting, with or without injuries, and battery against students were among the top five incidents in the 2005-2006 school year, according to the annual discipline, crime and violence report released by the Virginia Department of Education.
But these offenses make up less than 10 percent of Stafford and Spotsylvania's total incidents.
Spotsylvania reported 292 fights and battery against students out of a total of 4,582 incidents, making up about 6 percent of offenses.
In Stafford, which has a slightly larger student population, there were 350 reported fights or batteries out of 6,927 offenses, a little more than 5 percent of the total.
Schlegel said most incidents are minor and involve students bumping chests or fighting with some injuries. Fights resulting in injuries must be reported to the Sheriff's Office, which has the option of filing charges.
School resource officers help school officials handle such cases. The officers' presence is a deterrent, Schlegel said.
Not everyone is a fan of surveillance cameras, however. Critics, like the American Civil Liberties Union, name the cost and privacy issues as their main concerns.
Ted Feinberg, assistant executive director of the National Association of School Psychologists, says the more compelling issue is whether schools are willing to risk a small, alleged invasion of privacy to increase safety.
"The issue is we want to maximize schools as a safe and healthy environment for students to learn and for teachers to teach," Feinberg said.
He cautions that technology alone isn't the answer to making schools safe. The school community needs to foster a culture in which everyone is responsible for safety.
Tragic events have been averted because students stepped up to tell authorities of suspicious activity, he said.
"We want everybody to assume that they play a role in making that happen. It's not just the administrators responsible--it's the kids, it's everyone," Feinberg added.
With three children in Spotsylvania schools, Pam Lumpkin, president of the county's council of PTAs, wrote in an e-mail she feels the schools provide a safe and nurturing environment for students and teachers.
The cameras and school resource officers are important components.
"I think it is better to be proactive than reactive," she wrote.
At Massaponax High School, one of five high schools in the county, Rodkey says the key is to pay attention to details: locked doors, unwelcome visitors and suspicious activity.
"When you have a building with more than 2,000 people in it, it's a constant challenge to get them to think like I do," he said.
Given the resources the school has, there are still improvements to be made, Rodkey says. The cameras could have zoom capabilities. There also could be more of them, eliminating blind spots on campus.
For today, however, his job is complete: The school day is about to end and nothing is amiss.
Karen Bolipata: 540/374-5418