Issue: Schools

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora is a mother in Fairfax County, Virginia, an author, a member of the Coalition for TJ, and the Fairfax chapter leader of the Independent Women’s Network. Harry Jackson is a former school board candidate, president of Education Matters Virginia, member of the Coalition for TJ, a cybersecurity specialist, and a member of Independent Women’s Network. This piece originally appeared on American Thinker.

In February, a Fairfax County high school student read the news on his school-issued computer as Congress considered a bill authorizing $95 billion in foreign aid. Coming from a military family and having interest in serving our nation in the military himself, the student clicked on a Wikipedia link to the AK-47, a weapon mentioned in one of the articles he had been reading. An avalanche of harassment and prejudice against the student followed. This particular case provides a clear insight into the problem with public school districts’ Orwellian digital policies. These vague policies lack accountability mechanisms for administrators and teachers, and are vulnerable to implementation biases, particularly against ideologically conservative students.

The student, who had been excused from taking a math test that day, instead spent his time in class catching up on current events. As he clicked his way through the weapons used in the Ukraine-Russia conflict, the ones Americans are helping to buy, the school’s safety and security specialist arrived at the classroom. The student had no idea why he was there, and was surprised when the man called his name to escort him to the principal’s office.

There, one of the assistant principals informed the student that the teacher had been concerned because he was reading about the AK-47 and beckoned the security specialist to remove him from class. The teacher had not asked the student any questions, or redirected him to subject-based instructional material before the security specialist had arrived. Strangely, she had not even been in a position where she could physically view his personal screen.

Many of the district’s students and parents are unaware that Fairfax County Public Schools offers administrators, counselors, and teachers a program called Lightspeed Systems. It is essentially an unrestricted power for multiple school employees to surveille students’ computer screens in real time. While his classmates were taking their test, the teacher was spending her time figuratively watching over the student’s shoulder to see what he was reading.

Lightspeed is a new program in Fairfax County Public Schools and its use has not been codified into the district’s Acceptable Use Policy. An Acceptable Use Policy in a K-12 educational setting outlines guidelines and expectations for the appropriate use of technology resources within the school community. It serves as a framework to ensure that students, teachers, staff, and other stakeholders understand their rights and responsibilities when using digital devices, networks, and online services.

Fairfax County’s public school district follows what is known as a “permissive” Acceptable Use Policy that encourages students’ innovation, autonomy, and flexibility, allowing them to explore new technologies and methods to accomplish their tasks.

A student’s access to Wikipedia and the ability to research weapons used in the Ukraine-Russia conflict within the district’s permissive Acceptable Use Policy environment is neither blocked nor punishable under the code of conduct. A permissive Acceptable Use Policy approach recognizes the importance of digital literacy and the need for students to navigate and utilize the internet and various online platforms as part of their learning process. Access to Wikipedia, a comprehensive and widely used online resource, aligns with this goal. It is therefore unclear why the teacher would have called the school’s security specialist to remove the student from class.

After the student explained to the assistant principal why he had been reading about the AK-47, the student claims that the administrator understood his perspective and said, “Do your thing. Go to class.” So, the student did. He left the office and returned for the remaining minutes of his math class.

At the end of the class period when his classmates were leaving, he calmly asked the teacher why she did not speak to him before calling the security officer. The teacher responded that his search for the AK47 was “flagged” and she “had to report it,” making it seem as if she were forced to call the front office. Clearly, she did not wish to take responsibility for her surveillance and misunderstanding. Worse yet, she blamed the student for daring to question her and reported their conversation to the front office.

The assistant principal subsequently confronted the student for returning to that class after their meeting, claiming that was not his instruction. There was an obvious miscommunication between the administrator and the student about which class he should have walked to after his first time in the office. But then, the conversation shifted to the student’s questioning of the teacher.

The administrator explained to the student’s mother that in an effort to “deescalate” the situation, the student would be forced to sit out of class for a couple days, and proposed a “restorative conference circle.” The school administrators also informed the student’s mother that the circle was “voluntary.”

By the time the student, who notably has an Individual Education Program (IEP) and struggles with math, was permitted to rejoin his class, he had already missed three periods of class, equating to multiple hours of instruction.

For the missed classes, the student was required to sit in the school’s designated space for in-school suspensions. During one of the missed periods, his classmates took a quiz, for which the teacher discontinued the students’ internet capabilities.

Sitting far away from the class in an entirely different room and having no knowledge of the quiz, the student believed that the teacher was singularly restricting his access to the internet. It was not an unwarranted suspicion. After all, she had targeted his computer in class and assumed the absolute worst about him. When the internet began working again, he entered test Google searches such as “Ms. [teacher’s name] stop blocking my access,” and “If I was in class taking the quiz it wouldn’t matter.”

Unsurprisingly, the teacher immediately reported his Google searches to the school administrators, who then emailed the searched terms to his mother. In their communications, the administrators included the counselor, who is responsible for writing students’ letters of recommendation for college admissions. Students waive their right to review these letters, and such instances might very well be shared with college admissions officers.

Here again, the focus of the communication shared with the counselor was not on the student’s unjust exclusion from class, the inappropriate level of the teacher’s digital scrutiny on the student’s Google searches, or on her original mistake under the district’s digital policies. Instead, school administrators took issue with the student’s questioning of the teacher while he was being denied in-person instruction.

In the end, the student was never approached to participate in mediation or a restorative conference. The school did try, however, to persuade his mother to switch him into a different math class online, likely because the teacher demanded it. After she refused, the class had three different substitutes over the course of three weeks until they retained a permanent sub for the remainder of the school year. The teacher never returned to the student’s class, but she continues to teach her other classes and is in the school.

Public schools are at a fork in the road. Following pandemic policy’s prolonged closures, school districts are relying heavily on laptops for instructional material, even in primary schools.

There must be balance. Students should not always be learning on screens. And when they are, we ought to pose questions about how children are monitored. The increasing reliance on surveillance technology in public schools also raises questions about how long information will be stored, who has access to the data, and what its purpose will be — especially given Fairfax County Public Schools’ history with data breaches concerning students’ private information.

Considering the left-leaning inclinations of our public schools, we are subjecting students, especially those who are conservative, to unjust and unfounded targeting and persecution for their “thought crimes” with digital monitoring. Public school districts must be more transparent about their surveillance policies with students and parents.