If you've been watching the news lately, you might have heard a story about a PA high school that secretly spied on their students through the school-issued laptops. Evidently, the school administrators could turn on any student's webcam at any time and watch that student (without their knowledge or consent). The story came out because last week, the Assistant Principal called a student into her office and told the student she had seen pictures (through his webcam) of him dealing drugs while in his bedroom. He was shocked to hear this (as were his parents, and all of the other students and families), and now the district is in the middle of a huge class-action lawsuit.
Anyway, unfortunately that's my high school! Harriton High School, in Bryn Mawr, PA. It's strange to see thousands of news articles being circulated online about Harriton, and to see videos of it on CNN, Fox, ABC, NBC, and all the other major news networks. Here's a video clip of what they had to say about it today on Good Morning America:School Spies on Students? - ABC News
YiKES. I honestly feel bad for the Assistant Principal Ms. Matsko, although she was absolutely out of line for spying on the students. She was my old Spanish teacher during high school (before she was made Assistant Principal), and I thought she was fabulous. She must have just gotten carried away with trying to "catch" students doing bad things. It's sad to think she'll probably get sent to jail for this. But really, what a creepy story...
11 comments:
I saw that on the news...i was watching it w/ my baby brother Joel, and i said "that's where Karisa use to go to school"
I saw that too! Crazy story. It must be weird for you to see it all over the news. The kid says he was eating candy. I read some girl's statement that she took the laptop into the bathroom with her to listen to music in the shower and now she wonders if it was ever turned on remotely for her too. Creepy.
My former neighbor at BYU was on America's Most wanted for murder last Saturday. That was so crazy to see.
Yikes! That's a bummer of a claim to fame. I hope the mess gets sorted out soon!
So creepy! I hadn't heard about that story, and I'm pretty surprised that they seemed to think it was okay to do without consent. But maybe I'm just paranoid about legal stuff :)
Oh, and our house is completely done and we're moved in. Thankfully we got to move in when I was about 30 wks, which is a nice buffer time. Make sure you just be the "boss" and not the "lifter" when you guys move :)
That's crazy! Hmm...what were they thinking? And that's crazy that JulieAnn's neighbor was on AMW for murder?! I'm definitely getting more paranoid by the minute.
I know! I liked Ms. Matsko too! Still a little hard to believe she would do something like that, that the district would allow something like that to even go on!
The local scuttlebutt is that the student is a big druggie and was caught on the webcam doing drugs. That's why Ms. Matsko called him in and reprimanded him.
Whoa! What a claim to fame, Karisa!
I read that story the other day, but I never though to connect it to you, Karisa. It's a small world. Obviously an incident of well intentioned, but misguided. I'm sure there are serious warrentless wiretapping laws that were violated.
Oh wow that is nuts!!
wow that's kinda creepy to spy in kids that way. especially when you can see em' whenever, in their bedrooms! that's just wrong.
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