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I have often warned school personnel of the use of video surveillance in schools. Besides the possible FERPA violations if these videos were to be viewed, there is a fine line between what is acceptable to be videotaped and what is not. It all gets to a reasonable expectation of privacy. In a hallway, there is likely not a reasonable expectation of privacy. Perhaps there is not an expectation of privacy in a classroom, although it is a closer call. However, in an athletic locker room, there is probably an expectation of privacy, thus videos could be classified as a search on the part of the government.
Well, a jury in Tennessee has awarded a total of 1.28 million (divided between 32 students) for a school district's violation of student's privacy in an athletic locker room. Not only were the students taped at various stages of undress, but, in addition, the complaint claimed that the videos were viewed many times including in the evenings and over the Internet. While details are still forthcoming, this was a clear misuse of video surveillance in the school context and Overland County School District in Allon, TN (a small town) will pay a dear price for the violation. Here is the
MSNBC Story and the
Tennessean story on the recent decision and here is an
earlier article on the story.
Secondly, Florida has rumblings on a couple of possible constitutional amendments that would affect education there. One may be a way to allow the Florida Legislature to authorize school vouchers (
Boston Globe story). The Florida Supreme Court has ruled the previous voucher plan unconstitutional under the Florida Constitution (
story,
Bush v. Holmes case). Although still unlikely at this point, if the Florida constitutional issue could be resolved, a voucher system in Florida would probably be permitted because the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality (federal constitution) of vouchers in the case of
Zelman v. Simmons-Harris. Something to keep an eye on, although it would be years away, at best.
And finally, the Senate got the Federal Student Loan overhaul through 78 to 18 (
NY Times story,
Wash. Post story).
The bill will now move to conference to resolve the differences before
it heads to the President's office, who has threatened a veto.
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