Change.org<\/a> petition in January calling for cameras in special education classrooms. \u201cI just think that our children, especially the ones that are nonverbal, like deserve, you know, that extra set of eyes and transparency in case anything did happen in the classrooms,\u201d Hopwood said.<\/p>\nThe petition has now received more than 6,000 signatures, along with comments from supporters. \u201cit\u2019s just.. it\u2019s constantly growing, you know. It\u2019s getting signatures daily, whether it be a couple or a couple 100. So it shows that a lot of families are wanting this as well,\u201d Hopwood said.<\/p>\n
Hopwood said the effort is not meant as an attack on teachers, but as a way to better protect staff and children who cannot speak up for themselves. \u201cAlso, it protects the teachers if there\u2019s any false allegations, if they need to go back and look, you know, for training or ways to handle situations differently. So, I think it\u2019s, you know, protects everybody, the students get on the staff,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
KBAK<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Hopwood said other parents and former staff members have come forward with concerns similar to hers. With growing support, she said she has sent a request to state lawmakers to discuss a possible bill and has secured one meeting this month. \u201cSo we\u2019ll just have to keep contacting our like leaders and see if they are willing to work with us and support a bill on this as well,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Hopwood has also requested public records from the Bakersfield City School District regarding past incidents that she said allegedly occurred between a teacher and a student at a local elementary school. She said she has received some records but believes more exist than what has been provided.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, the reason why I originally requested the public records is because when we were talking to the district about the cameras in classrooms and I stated a fact to them, special education students are three times more likely to be physically, sexually, verbally abused in school setting, they tried to say not within the Bakersfield City School District, or that that was not their statistic, so that\u2019s where the public request records came from,\u201d Hopwood said.<\/p>\n
Hopwood said she is seeking \u201cclarity and transparency\u201d and believes the records should be released if children\u2019s names are withheld. \u201cSo their public records, there shouldn\u2019t be any reason why they are denied, as long as the children\u2019s names are being withheld,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Now with many supporters, Hopwood has made a request to speak with assembly members in hopes to create a bill to be voted on. She said she has no plans on stopping and will try to make cameras in self contained classrooms a law.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two Bakersfield parents of nonverbal children are pushing for cameras to be installed in special education classrooms, saying…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":389799,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,153,152],"class_list":["post-389798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield-headlines","tag-bakersfield-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/389799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}