Once trustees approve a contractor to do the work, each campus will receive 32 cameras to be installed in public places on school grounds at an estimated cost of $132,092 for both sites together.
Money for the two projects will be taken from the $8.8 million left in the district's modernization budget.
Costs may be more than estimated due to the board's request to include a new set of cameras to be placed over pending field-improvement projects at the high schools, Jellison said.
The major reason for installing camera systems is to protect millions of dollars of modernization work on the campuses, Burroughs Principal Emilio Urioste said.
"Cameras serve two things," Urioste said. "No. 1, it's a deterrence. And No. 2, if something occurs then you have a greater opportunity to identify who the perpetrator was."
High school principals and district officials hope the cameras will deter vandalism and theft, Urioste said.
The cameras will be on a Web-based system, making their content accessible to police and fire stations in Burbank at all times.
During the day, the cameras will show images in color and they will switch to infrared images at night.
But the surveillance will not extend into areas of the campuses considered private spaces, Urioste said. Classrooms, gym rooms and bathrooms will be off limits to the lenses and the locations will remain unknown to the students.
"They are in hallways," he said. "They are in the quad area. They are in areas of public access."
But even though the cameras will be installed in places the district considers to be public, Associated Student Body President at Burbank High School Melissa Medina, said she feels uncomfortable at the prospect of cameras in the hallways at school.
