Lower Merion students, parents worried by spying lawsuit
Friday, February 19th, 2010
By: Maiken Scott
mscott@whyy.org
Harriton High School in the Lower Merion school district has been rocked by a federal lawsuit charging school officials used a webcam on a school-issued laptop to spy on a student at home.
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Students and parents alike are shaken by the lawsuit and the frenzied media coverage it generated yesterday. At an unrelated school meeting last night, Katie McGlade said her son is supposed to start at Harriton next year. She heard about the lawsuit on her way to a curriculum meeting for new parents. She said the school district is fortunate to be able to give students laptops, but she’s shocked by the alleged misuse of technology:
McGlade: It’s just mind-boggling that the district would use this tool in this way, so I have to figure it out, but it’s very concerning.
One ninth-grader said she’s covered up the webcam on her laptop with duct tape, and worries her privacy has been violated.
In a statement yesterday, school officials admitted using webcams in the past to track missing computers, but insisted they never used them to monitor student behavior.
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Fact: Blake Robbins stole a mac laptop from Harriton High School. The kid was already on probation with the LMSD. The suit distracts from the FACT that Black Robbins is a thief and would be expelled, if not for the manipulation of the media by his parents. Remember, Blake Robbins stole a laptop. I wonder if the ACLU know that detail.
Any violation of the law by Blake Robbins can be handled by law enforcement in the appropriate way. This is about violations of the law conducted by the school – which cannot be justified by throwing mud at the student.
Without knowing about the whole remote-activated-webcam aspect, one might legitimately wonder why educational dollars are being used to hand out free laptops to residents of Philadelphia's Main Line suburbs. Surely the money would be better spent in, say, Kensington or Strawberry Mansion.
But with these new revelations, it starts to make sense. Aside from better teachers, newer textbooks, and functioning buildings, what do rich kids in America get that poor kids don't? Answer: the luxury of attending schools instead of mini-prisons equipped with metal detectors, rent-a-cops, and zero-tolerance policies that result in seventh graders being arrested for writing on their desks.
Obviously this inequality needed to be remedied by equivalently striping Harriton High kids of their dignity and privacy, but in a manner less offensive to Main Line aesthetics. Harriton kids can come to school safe in the knowledge that their gym bags won't be x-rayed, and that their marker doodling will be remedied with Windex rather than handcuffs. But… Teacher is watching.
I have more to say on this topic here: http://holyprepuce.blogspot.com/2010/02/school-district-in-fact-has-ability-to.html
School superintendent issues letter
http://mainlinemedianews.com/articles/2010/02/19/main_line_times/news/lmspygate/doc4b7eb2d28d005067578434.txt