Overkill or No Kill at All

[CrossLOPER]

What right has the school to discipline a child for behaviour in their home? They have no jurisdiction there.

In the school system that I entered in the US, EVERYTHING you did during the schoolyear was their business. Whether you got into a fight in school, after school or on Saturday, it does not matter.

[Beskar]

In Britain, it is everything that happens on the school grounds and academically.

If they suspected something like Child-Abuse, they report it to Social Services to deal with.

[Azathoth]

Is that a prestigious school?

No, just your average middle school in a not-terrible neighborhood. Better than Louis Armstrong, at least.

The family first learned of the embedded webcams on Nov. 11, when Harriton High's Assistant Principal Lindy Matsko reprimanded Blake Robbins for "improper behavior in his home," according to the lawsuit. Matsko cited as evidence a photograph from the webcam on the boy's school-issued laptop.
The lawsuit does not specify why the photograph was objectionable.

Oh boy, I wonder if the poor sap had been searching up pornography on that machine.

The real question is, how many people do you need to continuously monitor 1800 children 24/7?

[Gregoshi]

Oh boy, I wonder if the poor sap had been searching up pornography on that machine.

No, according to the kid, he was accused of taking drugs. What the school claims is him taking pills, he maintains are Mike & Ike candies (an elongated, capsule-like jelly bean). The school also maintains the security feature has only been activated 42 times for machines that were reported lost or stolen, however, the student's machine had not been reported as such. Knowledge of the feature was mixed among the students and some of them had put tape or paper over the webcams to prevent possible intrusions. This is a rather big local story, so there has been a lot of coverage. The school seems to be backpedaling now, so I think that even if the particular incident that sparked the lawsuit turns out to be false, the school district officials are in hot water. The whole thing has "stupid idea" written all over it, but that is probably just hindsight in my case.