According to the 2022 Indiana Youth Tobacco Survey, overall youth tobacco use is at its lowest since 2012; however; the epidemic continues as minors steer toward flavored e-cigarettes more frequently in recent years.

Due to its addictive nature and the variety of flavors increasing its appeal, vaping has become an issue with which many Indiana schools are grappling.

During the recent Seymour Community School Corp. board of education meeting, the board accepted a donation from the Jackson County Health Department for the installation of multi-functional health, safety and vape detection devices called HALO Smart Sensor 3C.

These devices will be installed at the middle school and high school in privacy areas, such as bathrooms and common areas.

The HALO system uses a sensor to monitor private areas, and to protect the privacy of individuals, it does not use cameras, record audio or capture any personal identifiable information.

School Resource Officer Jason Wynn said he reached out to different school corporations and SROs in the surrounding areas, such as Bartholomew County, Scott County and Jennings County, when researching different systems.

“This seems to be the top-notch system,” he said. “It can differentiate between tobacco and marijuana vapes.”

The system comes with LED-colored lighting options that can be programed to show escape routes for safety. This will allow users to create certain colors for different alerts, such as purple for air quality alerts or blue for health alerts. The lights themselves can be projected onto the ceiling around the HALO for extended visibility. This also includes emergency and escape lighting, which will allow occupants to navigate safely in a lockdown.

The device also alerts to abnormal loud noises, such as breaking items, yelling, gunshot detection and emergency keyword alerting. There also is a panic button located somewhere on the device in case an individual is in distress.

“These devices will be able to pick up certain key words, like ‘fight’ or ‘help,’ which will then alert us that something is going on in that area,” Wynn said.

The HALO system also uses motion detection to identify how many people are within the HALO location and alert on abnormalities and trespassing.

The device also can identify specific signatures of masking, which is when an individual tries to cover up their vaping activity by spraying concurrent aerosol sprays, such as air fresheners or body deodorant. The system also will update along with the new chemical formulas that vape companies manufacture.

Another feature is that the system will alert unhealthy air conditions and those likely to spread airborne disease pathogens as well as rising carbon dioxide levels. This will help protect air quality and maximize the length of the HVAC system by identifying when filters need to be replaced and cleaned.

“It also has tamper resistance, so if someone is messing with it, it will send out an audible alert along with notifying us,” Wynn said.

As alarm events from HALO are communicated, the device has the capability to enable camera recording and bookmark video, so at a single click, users will know who was in the area when the alarm was triggered.

“We have found that a lot of kids won’t use a certain bathroom because a certain group of kids hang out there and maybe do things they shouldn’t,” Wynn said. “They don’t want to be in trouble for something somebody else is doing, so they will hang out until they leave to use the bathroom or go to the other side of campus, making them late for class.”

Wynn said Bartholomew County showed great success within the first month after the installation of the device.

“The kids aren’t sticking around in the bathroom doing things they shouldn’t be doing because they know we’ve got this new tool, and the kids that didn’t feel comfortable going to that bathroom before can now feel safe,” he said.