Rio Rancho Public Schools associate superintendent Dr. James King insists it's not a case of 'big brother watching you' in the district's schools, but some parents and students may perceive it as such.

Safety and security are the main goals, he said.

The school board's first reading of its new video surveillance policy took place at its 29-minute meeting Monday evening. Video cameras have been in place for a while at Rio Rancho High School and within the Mid-High, and more are to be installed, including the high-tech pan-tilt-zoom cameras. The 'PTZ' cameras allow a viewer the ability to pan, from left to right, tilt, to get a view of a different area and zoom, or close-in on the face or faces of suspicious students.

"What we've done is we have replaced some of our old, fixed-lens cameras with the pan-tilt and adjustable lenses; you can actually be in the control center where we record this and actually do the adjustment, back and forth and tilt, yourself."

Images are recorded digitally. "They're more expensive but they're more reliable and they're faster," King said. "You can do segments; take out that segment and copy it to a supplementary source easily. We've resolved some problems with it already."

The cameras and videotape within each can be used to settle disputes, discover who was responsible for graffiti, or reveal who was instigating or involved in a fight, "and to clear up false accusations," King said.

"We're not trying to be big brother," he said.

Cameras have been used successfully in school buses, he said, on more than one occasion to prove students had been unruly and were not about to be allowed back on the bus until their behavior improved. Doubting parents viewing the videotape thus learned their students had misbehaved.

"We've brought a whole busload of parents in when we had an incident a year ago," King said. "Parents were concerned this occurred; we made a requirement - as a matter of fact, I was involved in that - they had to come in or their kid could not ride the bus until they reviewed the tape because we wanted them to see what was going on.

"Once they saw it they were not pleased (with their child) and changes took place immediately."

King said many of the cameras are not hidden, but that "we try to protect them because they can be damaged and they are expensive - $2,500 for some of them, and more."

"We use those to look at things that have taken place on the campus. We go back and pan in on that scene and take a look at it and get a real clear vision of what happened," he said. "We don't necessarily show (the tape) to the student or the parent. What we do is we use that if we have to do additional steps; hopefully, we don't have to do that. We try to make sure we preserve the privacy of the students. Basically, this doesn't get released to anyone unless we feel there's an absolute need."

Gerard Hyatt, the director of security at RRHS, said there are 26 cameras at RRHS, including those in the gymnasium and portables sites.

"Surveillance has been very effective in resolving vandalism issues in the parking lot and on campus," Hyatt said.

As the victim of a drive-by shooting at his residence, perpetrated by a former RRHS student, Hyatt has since installed a surveillance system at his home.

"There are some ingenious ways they install those things," he said. "They've helped tremendously."

In other matters dispensed with Monday, the board - meeting without Dan Schlichte and Superintendent Dr. Sue Cleveland, - approved several annual contracts, including one giving beverage vending rights to Pepsi. King said that carbonated beverages are not vended at the elementary schools or two middle schools.

The board also approved a slight revision to the district's compulsory school attendance policy.

The school board's next meeting is July 25 at 6 p.m.