Southern Indiana schools to install vape detectors

Brooke McAfee, The Evening News and the Tribune, Jeffersonville, Ind.
·2 min read

Mar. 17—CLARKSVILLE — Southern Indiana school districts will place sensors in schools to prevent students from vaping.

Clarksville Community Schools recently announced that it will soon place 10 Verkada Environmental Sensors in student restrooms at Clarksville High School and Renaissance Academy. The sensors will notify the school administration through text or email if someone has been vaping.

Matt Pait, assistant principal at Clarksville High School, said the devices are meant to "ensure the safety of all students" at the school.

"Some students use the restrooms to vape and congregate, making it harder for students doing the right thing to use [the restrooms]," he said. "Vape use is also sharply on the rise among teens, and we hope these detectors will help deter vape usage among students at school."

If the administrators are not nearby to check on the situation when they are notified of vaping in school, they can check the school's camera system to see who was going in and out of the restroom at a particular time.

Greater Clark Community Schools is also planning to expand the number of vape detectors in place across the district. On Tuesday, the Greater Clark school board voted unanimously to accept settlement funds from a lawsuit against JUUL. The district entered litigation against the electronic cigarette company last spring, and a settlement was reached in February.

April Geltmaker, general counsel for Greater Clark, said at Tuesday's meeting that the district is eligible to receive approximately $175,000. This will support the purchase and installation of HALO vape detectors in restrooms across the district.

The district will receive the first half of the settlement in the fall of this year. The HALO devices will be in addition to five vape detectors already in place in Greater Clark schools.

The devices detect vaping, smoking and THC, and they detect "sound abnormalities such as gunshots or shouting" in parts of the school where cameras are not placed, Geltmaker said. Administrators and school resource officers will receive texts notifying them if the sensors detect anything.

Greater Clark Superintendent Mark Laughner said the goal is to put a sensor in every school bathroom at the high school and middle school level.

"In the research that I've done, the schools that have been using them for a couple of years have said that the vape incidents have gone down anywhere from 70% to 80%, so that would be a good thing," he said.