School Spying Scandal Gets Even More Bizarre

Several sources following the recent school webcam spying debacle are reporting that an even stranger twist has surfaced. The student in question that was disciplined for an "improper act" was apparently accused of either drug use or drug selling. Turns out he was eating Mike & Ike candy, not popping pills. While there is probably more to this story than has made it to the general public, the officials involved have done a particularly bad job of actually managing the events.

Comments

Underwear check

[Ethanol-fueled]

I've mentioned this before, but from this:

In April 2002, Rancho Bernardo received media attention when one of the school's assistant principals forced female students at a school dance to lift their clothing and expose their underwear, in search of G-strings and thongs. The district said the reason for the check was to "ensure appropriate school dress."[2] Rita Wilson, the assistant principal involved in this incident, was later demoted to a teaching position.[3]

And it was later discovered that none of the students broke any rules. The rule was that underwear could not be showing. The problem is people making up the rules as they go along, often in secret. Our government for example...

Haha, 'ol Mike & Ikes

[Hellasboy]

LOL!
Oh man... Back in high school, I routinely grabbed a box of mike & ike (pink and white flavor/version) from a vending machine and kept it in my backpack to snack on. One day in class, a kid that sat next to me in the row over saw that I kept putting my hand in my backpack and eating something. So he asked what I was eating.
Being a jackass, I replied secretly ... "I'm popping steroids"
Big white and pink pills... huge effin steroids!
He started yelling in class "Steroids! Steroids! He's popping steroids!!!!" Everyone looks over and I didn't expect that kind of reaction from something pretty comical. Luckily nothing came of it, I just replied really quickly that they're just Mike and Ikes... a few laughs later - everything was fine.

I would expect a high school student to do something like this. However, a principle of a high school should know better and this mess reeks of incompetence on his part.

Bizzarre doesn't begin to cover it

[Anonymous Coward]

I go to Villanova University, which is 5 minutes by train from Lower Merion. One of my profs has a daughter that goes there (when I showed him the brief on Thursday, he was floored.)

The Mike & Ike thing is pretty damn bizarre, but it makes sense.

I expect the school already deleted the logs. Then again, given the tech competence of my own high school (all software and VLKs were on public shares, all documents were accessible [all users] if logged in via RDP, including passwords to the externally hosted attendance/transcript web app, etc.), it would not be terribly surprising if they just saved it all.

And I was disciplined for taking prescription medication for which the school had a proper release (i.e. I signed the right form and gave a doctor's note saying I needed to have the medication on my person). Nosy administrators "thinking of the children" and overreacting to non-issues (as well as egregious violations of privacy) would be nothing new in my book.

More info on Network Adminsistrator.

[pavon]

It turns out that one of the the network administrators at the school district has a fairly large online presence, and has posted quite a bit relating to this program on his blog over the years. Some folks have started looking over the blogs and the software being used, and it is pretty interesting.

Re:eh

[kannibal_klown]

School officials are notorious for being completely clueless about the law; it's amazing what you find in some of the case law.

You don't even have to look that far. A year ago there was a big story about a school that strip-searched a female student because another student claimed he got Advil from her . She was even suspended, even though no pills were found.

I understand the whole zero-tolerance policy of not bringing in any medication, but a flippin' strip search is uncalled for. They didn't even have law enforcement do it, one of the school admins had to do it.

WTF

What's scary is it had to go to the Supreme Court for them to say "ummm, that's illegal." They ruled on the matter in June 2009.

Re:Mike And Ikes == Bad Behavior

[Locke2005]

The students that actually need to take medication are required to keep a supply of medication in the school office, and travel unescorted from classroom to office every time they need to take it. My daughter has an albuterol inhaler for asthma, and is not allowed to keep it with her in the classroom; instead she must travel to the other end of the school to use it, and is then disciplined if she takes too long to get back to the classroom, or heaven forbid stops to use the restroom on the way back (yes, she was actually written up for using the restroom on the way back from the office.)

Yes, you're much better off being homeschooled (my kids sisters were, and they came out great). Unfortunately, most families have all parents working, so that option is not available to them. Consider yourself lucky that you have a parent that can afford to spend that kind of time with you.

School administrators have no checks and balances on their authority, and behave as one would expect. Amen to that... I complained that a teacher was discriminating against my daughter, and pointed out the specific statute that were violating. They responded by slapping me with a restraining order barring me from school grounds and lying about what was actually going on in the classroom (they have admitted verbally, but not in writing, that they were in fact lying). Then, a few weeks later, they ceased the unlawful behavior they had previously claimed was perfectly legal.

Re:Ugh.

[BobMcD]

I sent my son to school with Carmex for his severely chapped lips. It was confiscated and they sent home a nasty note stating roughly the above phrase.