The eye in the sky doesn’t lie.

School officials say new security cameras installed during winter break at Free State and Lawrence high schools already have helped catch trouble-making students in the act.

Matt Brungardt, associate principal at LHS, said the cameras and the system’s digital technology allowed the school and police to identify and nab those trying to break in to LHS during winter break.

School Resource Officer for Lawrence High School, Jon Barta, displays video recently recorded from a security camera outside the high school of a truck peeling out in front of the front doors. The school is looking to increase the number of security cameras it has as an aditional safety measure for students and faculty. Barta believes that the security cameras serve to help deter crime at the school.

“That’s how good the picture was. They tried to disguise who they were, and we saw them,” said Tom Bracciano, director of operations and facilities for the Lawrence school district.

The systems now include 16 cameras at each high school. The digital picture allows a school resource officer to view on a single monitor a clear picture in color from each camera. A digital video device records the images and stores them on a computer.

Bracciano said the security upgrade this year includes $40,000 budgeted for each high school.

As part of that, the district has ordered more cameras, and each high school could have 32 to 36 cameras in another week, he said.

The district hopes to install similar camera systems at the junior high schools during the summer.

Lawrence High students make their down the high school's halls Friday afternoon.

As another part of the district’s security upgrades, an electronic-entry system for faculty and staff members will be in place within a month at West Junior High School.

Plans call for all Lawrence high schools and junior high schools to eventually be equipped with the keyless entry and camera systems, Bracciano said.

The new camera system also helped school officials identify those involved in a fight at LHS.

“Students denied it,” Brungardt said. “We were able to go back and play the hallway tape where the fight occurred. That contradicted their stories.”

Bracciano said the cameras were placed in areas that otherwise would be difficult for school officials to watch, such as stairwells.

“There’s always a place somewhere where you need an extra set of eyes,” he said.

Various security cameras are installed in the ceilings of Lawrence High School. School Resource Officer Jon Barta explained that they will soon be doubling the amount of cameras.

But the cameras show public places rather than inside bathrooms or locker rooms, he said.

Bracciano said some people had inquired about the new system, but all the feedback he has heard has been positive.

Brungardt said he thought most students have forgotten the cameras are recording them but that he hopes the new cameras will stop trouble before it happens.

“Really, they become more preventive over time,” Brungardt said. “Why would you break into this high school if there are 36 cameras and you know you’re going to get caught?”

• City’s high schools increase security

Free State senior Boning Zhang said Friday that she didn’t notice the new cameras until she read about them in a school newsletter. She hasn’t heard other students talk much about them, and Zhang said she thought the system was not a bad idea or a threat to privacy.

“It’s not like they’re trying to hide them,” she said.