City Solicitor Stephen Buoniconti told the School Committee on Feb. 11 that a vote on a new MOU involving a much-debated school cameras contract will need a delay.
Photo credit: Focus Springfield
SPRINGFIELD — A new iteration of a memorandum of understanding that lets police patch into school cameras in live time during an emergency is about to pass the School Committee.
The committee’s Legislative and Contracts Subcommittee conducted meetings over the past couple of months to hash out language for the revised MOU between the School Department and Police Department, with the goal of making a much-debated school cameras contract much more transparent and user-friendly than it is now.
The full School Committee was set to vote on the new MOU during its Feb. 11 special meeting, but the vote was delayed because City Solicitor Stephen Buoniconti said he needed more time to iron out any issues or concerns around language.
Buoniconti also said the delayed vote would allow Police Superintendent Lawrence Akers to go through the document “line-by-line” since he was unable to do that at the time of the Feb. 11 meeting.
“It would just help us be able to craft what we think would be a very cohesive document, one that all parties can agree with,” Buoniconti said. “Right now, there’s a little bit of hesitancy from our department and from the Police Department to fully sign off.”
The reason why the School Committee is voting on a revised MOU between the two departments is because the current one, which was implemented in 2021, was set to expire in 2024.
But questions and concerns from the public and some members of the School Committee forced the School Committee to extend the current MOU for another 120 days, and then eventually, another 45 days, so the Legislative and Contracts subcommittee could gather public input and work with legal counsel on a revised MOU that eliminates those concerns.
As of right now, the current school camera policy from 2021 allows the Springfield Police Department’s Real-Time Crime Analysis Center and the civilian video analyst live access to the cameras inside the schools only in the event of emergencies, like when there is an active shooter, or other life-threatening situations.
The current MOU states that SPD supervisors and officers are also allowed to access the interior cameras if they are responding to or investigating an incident “believed to be depicted on such images and recordings.”
SPD can only access these interior cameras during a non-emergency investigation if they receive written approval from the Springfield Public Schools Safety and Security Office.
The current MOU also states that the SPS exterior cameras can be accessed at any time by SPD’s Real-Time Crime Analysis Center and the civilian video analyst, along with SPD officers and supervisors “responding to or in good faith investigating an incident depicted on such images and recordings.”
The interior and exterior cameras can only be used for law enforcement purposes, and no “still images” or “video images” of students can be released to entities that are not a part of the MOU agreement.
Since the inception of this camera agreement more than three years ago, the interior cameras have been accessed eight times in total.
Seven of those times were prank “swatting” calls while the other involved the incident at Springfield’s High School of Science and Technology in the spring where shots were fired inside the school. The Sci-Tech incident was considered the only “real-time use” for the cameras.
At two public meetings in late 2024, students expressed concern about police access to these cameras, with some asking for more transparency and better clarity in the current MOU. City officials, meanwhile, attempted to quell residents’ concerns during the public meetings.
School Superintendent Sonia Dinnall said in early January that those two public comment meetings yielded “amazing, thoughtful [and] insightful ideas” by students and family members that attended.
Now, after multiple Legislative and Contract Subcommittee meetings, it appears the School Committee is ready to vote on a revised MOU with the public suggestions in mind.
“We are so grateful that we have arrived at an MOU that reflects not only the safety of our students, but also the needs and the wishes of the community,” Dinnall said on Feb. 11.
Ian Keefe, a local attorney representing the School Committee, told the Legislative and Contracts Subcommittee on Jan. 29 that the revised MOU does not change the practice of the current MOU, but it is “more transparent” and “user friendly.”
“The purpose of the changes here were not made to change any actual current practice and there were no issues raised with the current practice,” Keefe said. “The issues really were understanding what the contract said and making sure that captured what was going on, and I believe this updated revision captures the actual current practice between the schools and the Police Department.”
Although the vote to execute the revised MOU was delayed on Feb. 11, Buoniconti said during that meeting that everything should be squared away within two weeks. Keefe added during the Feb. 11 meeting that a vote “is close.”
“We are very close with the language,” Keefe said. “The small revisions that were sent in this morning, I think they’re very easy to understand and to incorporate.”
School Committee member Denise Hurst said on Feb. 11 that she felt the Legislative and Contracts Subcommittee came away from its Jan. 29 meeting “extremely happy” with what the revised MOU looks like, but she asked Keefe what small revisions still needed to happen.
Keefe responded by saying that certain aspects around the external cameras language needed to be better defined.
The School Committee ultimately decided on Feb. 11 to vote on the revised MOU at its March 13 meeting.
“We had a lot of community engagement, a lot of activity, a lot of questions, a lot of concerns, and I was really pleased with the fact that our attorneys really worked diligently to make sure that we created a document that was not just about equity, but also transparency, and really speaking to the fullness of the process to ensure that everyone is safe,” said School Committee member and chair of the Legislative and Contracts Subcommittee LaTonia Monroe Naylor.
