<p>People need to lose their jobs over this.</p>
<p>This type of invasion of privacy, especially in the case of minors, cannot be tolerated.</p>
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<p>It seems unlikely that the superintendent would have been intimately involved with the use of the surveillance technology. </p>
<p>However, somewhere in that district there are some people who were and when it all comes out it’s going to be quite hard for them to justify that, in light of an egregious lack of judgement, they’re fit for office.</p>
<p>There are serious outstanding questions of conduct in relation to the AP’s actions and IT officials, plus potentially other unknown players. </p>
<p>These aren’t burger flippers we’re talking about, they’re supposed to be highly trained professionals and the charges against them are far from a ‘minor oversight.’ </p>
<p>If those professionals are found responsible for creating and using a program of warrant-less covert surveillance of children in their homes then that’s clear grounds to be declared unfit for office–especially an office where they are given legal responsibility over a community’s children. </p>
<p>I don’t think it’s a sure bet that heads will roll (for either criminal or unfit for office reasons), but someone or a small number of people are responsible for this and we’ve long since passed the “let’s just pretend this never happened” stage.</p>
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<p>That’s pretty much the heart of the matter. Part of the problem seems to be that the three people most responsible – the district’s CIO, the superintendent, and the board chair – have all changed in the past six months. The people actually responsible (or irresponsible) for these decisions, which were basically made a year or more ago, haven’t been heard from yet, and I doubt they are clamoring for attention.</p>
<p>My guess – and it’s only a guess – is that people at the superintendent/board level only ever heard “we have security software to help us retrieve lost or stolen laptops”, and never even knew that software included taking pictures inside people’s homes. I guess that the tech people made these decisions on a tech basis, and failed to recognize that there was a bigger issue that should be surfaced to the superintendent. </p>
<p>It also seems clear that neither the (former) superintendent nor the board did much of its own research on the issues of having a universal laptop program, or did a bad job of it, and that no one did or directed others to do a “best practices” review of what peer districts were doing with every aspect of laptop acquisition and program. Once it knew what questions to ask, it only took the Inquirer a few hours to find plenty of schools that had nixed this feature on privacy grounds. So I have to conclude that LM never asked the right questions, or anything like them.</p>
<p>Good article about the growing abuse of power on the part of school administrators.</p>
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<p>[url=<a href=“http://blog.nj.com/njv_guest_blog/2010/03/handcuffed_for_graffiti_school.html]Link[/url”>Handcuffed for graffiti: School discipline overdone - nj.com]Link[/url</a>]</p>
<p>Is it just me or has all government become more prone to harsh treatment of citizens since 9-11? Always in the name of our security of course.</p>
<p>^ Toblin, good point linking this to the larger “security state” we have morphed to as a society.</p>
<p>There are interesting articles about the lack of effectiveness around the security cameras popping up everywhere in actually reducing crime or catching criminals; however, they are becoming quite adept at tracking individuals’ movements. Panopticon indeed. </p>
<p>A public figure recently committed suicide in Chicago. The police were able to confirm no foul play by tracking his vehicle movements through webcam/traffic cam networks throughout the Greater Chicago area all the way to the Chicago River. Think about the ramifications of that police tracking ability for a moment.</p>
<p>It is my hope that the Harriton iSpy matter serves as a watershed; something that grabs the attention of Americans to recall how important liberty is to being American …</p>
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<p>The retired IT director actually made an early statement, reporting that not much thought had been given to operational control policies for the theft recovery capability.</p>
<p>Some may look to that to hang her. I applaud her for her candor in sorting out what went wrong and opening the door to getting it right. I believe that is the path for LMSD to follow to get back on track to leaving these events in the rearview mirror.</p>
<p>You’re right that the retired IT director gave a quote to the press right after the suit was filed, but I think she had a sudden attack of unavailability almost immediately thereafter. As with everyone else, she will not be candid with anyone until the criminal investigation is resolved, and threatening to fire her – your idea of what should happen to adults who want to exercise their constitutional rights – will be a pretty hollow threat.</p>
<p>Well, I’m not a fan of just firing people in cases like these, but there does need to be some consequences for blatant stupidity. (And this was pretty blatantly stupid.) Giving people a free pass in every respect based on the “I had no idea I was breaking the law” defense doesn’t provide any encouragement to these folks to get smarter in the future (after all, being dumb worked so well the first time) and doesn’t serve the public purpose of causing others to think about student rights and privacy before they start doing the next dumb thing. Cooperate with a full investigation, the results of which are made public; agree to take an approved course or seminar on privacy rights; and requirements that the people involved make presentations to other administrator groups on what went wrong and how they should have handled things differently – that all seems fair game to me, and much more useful than firing someone. (Though, as been previously noted by JHS, all bets are off if someone on the tech staff was actually monitoring more than the 42 cases already admitted, or engaging in other inappropriate conduct that went well beyond trying to track lost or stolen computers.)</p>
<p>^ JHS, my idea of what should happen to employees who refuse to answer questions about what they did on the job, yes: fire them.</p>
<p>Public employees apparently get a luxury private employees do not: under Garrity the right (if amorphous) to use immunity in criminal proceedings.</p>
<p>In addition to the FBI and DA, Lower Merion can add now OSHA to the list of agencies probing around the place. </p>
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<p>Yes, I know the accident is likely tied to a subcontractor of the district rather than the district itself…</p>
<p>Rocket, hopefully only relevant in signaling the end of the dark stretch for LMSD: that bad news comes in threes (redistricting, iSpy,and this accident).</p>
<p>As you noted, this sad event is really the general contractor’s issue, not LMSD’s.</p>
<p>A couple of today’s articles on the Lower Merion community and its reaction to the lawsuit:</p>
<p>[L</a>. Merion schools a picture in polarity | Philadelphia Inquirer | 03/03/2010](<a href=“http://www.philly.com/inquirer/home_top_stories/20100303_L__Merion_schools_a_picture_in_polarity.html]L”>L. Merion schools a picture in polarity)</p>
<p>and</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.philly.com/philly/education/20100303_Parents_meet_to_slam_Lower_Merion_spy-cam_suit.html[/url]”>Parents meet to slam Lower Merion spy-cam suit;
<p>Some of the feedback comments to the latter article (Parents meet to slam Lower Merion spy-cam suit) are fascinating.</p>
<p>I have lived on the Philadelphia Main Line since 2002, in a different school district than Lower Merion. We have been less enchanted with the public school system than apparently many who choose to live and send their kids to school here. We finally pulled our kid out of public school in high school and she transferred to a private school. So we are now paying twice-tuition for private school and a healthy tax bill. I do not begrudge my neighbors the tax burden. What I have come to loathe, however, are the mentality and culture of the Main Line. </p>
<p>I grew up in an upper class suburban area that also was noted for its excellent public schools. However I never witnessed the type of social elitism, arrogance and entitlement that permeates the culture of the Main Line. The news articles, especially the comments of readers that are posted, that were linked by JEM, give a glimpse into these attitudes and lifestyle.</p>
<p>We have seen the greed, the fierce competitiveness, the conspicuous consumption. More so, we have seen the impact this has had on the children who grow up in this culture. The kids on Main Line are subjected to intense pressures to succeed at any cost. The fallout of this goes well beyond alcohol, drugs, sex, and other forms of acting out. Nasty social cliques at the schools, academic cheating, tutoring and coaching that begins in junior high school. The mental health profession is doing quite nicely in this part of the world. Depression, anxiety, eating disorders and yes, suicides. Weve been dismayed and sickened by this, and have done everything possible to try to insulate our kid from these types of pressures.</p>
<p>Some will argue that this is no different than what is seen in similar communities across the country. I believe the Main Line is unique, and that its entitlement culture is disproportionate to that seen in other upper class areas. </p>
<p>So Im not surprised to see how the Lower Merion community has been reacting to the issue of the spycam lawsuit, and how it has polarized people largely along class and racial lines. Similar to the attitude of JHS (who apparently is not a resident of the LMSD but who has many friends and associates who are), there has been a circling of the wagons reaction by many. Defending and protecting the school district and trashing the boy and his family, the latter being especially loathsome to me. Putting money and image ahead of the defending of basic Constitutional rights is a nice snapshop into the mentality of this community.</p>
<p>In any event the LMSD is now rightly in deep doo-doo. I personally believe that the school district engaged in criminal activity (my opinion), and I hope that the District and those individuals involved, will be prosecuted and convicted to the full extent of the law. If they prevail in the civil suit I hope the parents and child not only benefit financially for the deprivation of their right to privacy, but are given a public apology.</p>
<p>ClarkAlum, you are clearly being a little less than forthcoming here. I will grant that there is an element of truth to what you say about Main Line culture. But in my experience if you want to see arrogance, social elitism, entitlement, greed, fierce competitiveness, conspicuous consumption, alcohol, drugs, sex, and other forms of acting out, you will find a lot more of it at Main Line private schools than at Main Line public schools, except perhaps for tiny schools run by niche religious communities. And you will also find a lot more of it in the equivalent Westchester County and Southwestern Connecticut communities, in Northern Virginia and Montgomery County MD, on Chicago’s North Shore, and in other demographically similar school districts around the country. I find it hard to believe you took your kids out of public school in Wayne, or Devon, or wherever, and sent them to private school, primarily to find a less-entitled environment.</p>
<p>The kids I know at LM, or who are recent LM or Harriton graduates, are smart, humble, centered, well-educated and . . . nice. They represent their schools very well. I can’t say the same thing about, say, Bronxville where my nephews went to school (apologies to the many nice kids in Bronxville, though).</p>
<p>If I were going to summarize the position of the parents leading the Narberth meeting last night, I think it would be this: The district should correct its procedures, and under no circumstances should be spying on kids in their homes. But we don’t believe that there was systematic abuse here, and we want the district’s focus to continue to be on education, not legal issues. The courts are a bad, expensive place to resolve this, and we do not trust the plaintiffs and their lawyer to make decisions for the families in the district.</p>
<p>I have to laugh at the pseudo-sophistication of some of the comments JEM alluded to. People seriously believe that the presence of insurance, and the fact that not all taxpayers in Lower Merion use the schools, means that students and their families won’t bear the brunt of any financial settlement here? For most institutions of this type, liability insurance is basically a financing device, with higher payouts being recovered as higher premiums over a very short number of years. And not all additional school costs are going to be funded by taxpayers – many or most will be funded by cuts in other school programs, in other words by students and their families.</p>
<p>As an outside observer of this whole situation, the behavior of many parents in the district has taken my opinion of LMSD (which was low to begin with given the racism and surveillance suits) and made it even lower…</p>
<p>I think JEM @#571 (LMSD polarization) and JustaMom4 @#559 (teacher/student rape case) demonstrate that cases like this will destructively divide their communities until the matter gets resolved and the downward spiral will worsen the longer the corpse is left out to rot.</p>
<p>I agree some of the comments following the article are quite illuminating. To add perhaps a cheap shot, not being a Philly area guy – these people need to get over themselves! Philly has been an also ran (if that) city for, oh, say 25-50 years? I guess Lords of their own domain, enjoying watching fading re-runs of Katherine Hepburn in Philadelphia Story has its feel good aspects.</p>
<p>In fairness, an annual yield of 60+ NMS finalists for a smallish two high school district is an impressive stat.</p>
<p>On a more practical level, LMSD needs to understand the self-annointed Brahmins vocal now will not make up their jury pool. If it gets that far, LMSD will have made a potentially bankrupting mistake on the depth of the message the “lowlifes” are likely to deliver, seeing as those lowlifes don’t pay taxes and all (sarcasm intended).</p>
<p>Well, probably a wait and see. If parents learn that their darling Amanda was secretly photographed or visually recorded in her room they might have a rather different reaction. Funny how that works.</p>
<p>ClarkAlum- You could be describing Dallas suburbs exactly. This is NOT unique to the Main Line, and, in fact, I would argue that due to the influence of “old money” there is less of this attitude on the Main LIne than in many areas of the country. I am very familiar with the Main Line AND Dallas (Plano and Highland Park schools particularly mimic your description).</p>
<p>Good friends of ours moved to the Main Line from the Five Towns area of Long Island a few years ago. Their kids go/went to Harriton, and they are thrilled at how much less competition, conspicuous consumption, etc. they see here compared to where they came from (it’s one of the reasons they moved, in fact). This isn’t to say that the Main Line doesn’t have plenty of those things, just that it’s certainly not unique, as MOWC says, or the worst place in that regard.</p>
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<p>Just realized I misread the article; circled back because this number of NMF’s seemed so staggering. From LMSD page, this is the overall NM honored, ranging low 20s on NM Semifinalists. </p>
<p>That remains a very impressive number marking a top district, just correcting my mistake.</p>
<p>There is a lot to be proud of at LMSD, and I hope they add becoming a national leader in educating on the importance of individual liberties to that list.</p>
<p>Two Lower Merion School District IT workers placed on leave–from philly.com</p>