School district will pay $610,000 to settle lawsuits over tracking of students' laptop computers

The Lower Merion School District will pay $610,000 to settle lawsuits over its tracking of student laptop computers, ending an eight-month saga that thrust the elite district into a global spotlight and stirred questions about technology and privacy in schools. The announcement brought an abrupt end to a case that divided Lower Merion parents, fueled an acrimonious court battle, and was on pace to cost the district several million dollars. It also followed weeks of behind-the-scenes negotiations between Haltzman and district lawyer Henry E. Hockeimer, including two days of mediation ordered by the federal judges overseeing the cases and pressing for a resolution. Beginning in 2008, the district rolled out a plan to give the nearly 2,300 students at its two high schools their own laptop computers to use in class and take home each day. Administrators never told students that missing computers could be remotely tracked using software that let technicians turn on webcams and see what was on a user's screen. That capability burst into public view when Robbins and his parents filed their lawsuit in February. In it, they claimed that the district secretly snapped hundreds of images from the teen's laptop, including one when he was sleeping. Robbins learned of the technology, they said, when an assistant principal at his school confronted him with a webcam photo. Robbins had never reported his laptop missing, and school officials gave conflicting reasons for tracking his computer...more