Lower Merion School District

Montgomery County, Pennsylvania Public School Districts. Lower Merion School District is in the southern corner of the county.

Lower Merion High School

Lower Merion School District, or LMSD, is a public school district located in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, USA. The school district includes residents of both Lower Merion Township and the Borough of Narberth. Established in 1836, LMSD is one of the oldest districts in Pennsylvania. It is the wealthiest school district in the state, and one of the wealthiest school districts in the country.^[1]

Schools administered

Ten schools comprise the district:

• Lower Merion High School^[2]
• Harriton High School^[3]
• Bala Cynwyd Middle School^[4]
• Welsh Valley Middle School^[5]
• Belmont Hills Elementary School (originally the Ashland Avenue School)^[6][7]
• Cynwyd Elementary School^[8]
• Gladwyne Elementary School^[9]
• Merion Elementary School, the site of the April 4, 1991, plane crash that killed Republican U.S. Senator John Heinz. The plane crash also took the lives of six others, including two first grade students playing at recess.
  

  Merion Elementary School
  ^[10]
• Penn Wynne Elementary School, the elementary school that Alex Scott attended.^[11]
• Penn Valley Elementary School^[12]

Class action

In February 2010, a class action lawsuit was filed against the school district, alleging that Harriton High School had been secretly using remotely activated webcams built into laptops issued to their students to spy on the students in their homes, thereby infringing on their privacy rights.^[13] The webcam picture-snapping function was part of an anti-theft mechanism to help locate laptops that were reported by students as stolen. This function was activated by the school district on numerous occasions without adherence to the established guidelines. The lawsuit was filed by the parents of a student who had been warned by an assistant principal that he had been engaging in "improper behavior" in his bedroom. The schools admitted to snapping over 66,000 pictures and screenshots, including webcam shots of students in their bedrooms.^[14][15] No individuals were found guilty of spying though.

See also

• List of school districts in Pennsylvania

References

1. "Philadelphia Magazine". Phillymag.com. Retrieved September 21, 2010.
2. "Lower Merion High School". LMSD. Retrieved September 2, 2013.
3. "Harriton High School". LMSD. Retrieved September 2, 2013.
4. "Bala Cynwyd Middle School". LMSD. Retrieved September 2, 2013.
5. "Welsh Valley Middle School". LMSD. Retrieved September 2, 2013.
6. "Belmont Hills Elementary School". LMSD. Retrieved September 2, 2013.
7. "Belmont Hills Elementary Schools: About Belmont Hills: History". Lower Merion School District. Retrieved September 2, 2013.
8. "Cynwyd Elementary School". LMSD. Retrieved September 2, 2013.
9. "Gladwyne Elementary School". LMSD. Retrieved September 2, 2013.
10. "Merion Elementary School". LMSD. Retrieved September 2, 2013.
11. "Penn Wynne Elementary School". LMSD. Retrieved September 2, 2013.
12. "Penn Valley Elementary School". LMSD. Retrieved September 2, 2013.
13. "School used student laptop webcams to spy on them at school and home". Boing Boing. February 17, 2010. Retrieved February 18, 2010.
14. Doug Stanglin (February 18, 2010). "School district accused of spying on kids via laptop webcams". USA Today. Retrieved February 19, 2010.
15. "Initial LANrev System Findings", LMSD Redacted Forensic Analysis, L-3 Services – prepared for Ballard Spahr (LMSD's counsel), May 2010. Retrieved August 15, 2010.

External links

• LMSD website
• Community Site with information on LMSD budget issues
• LMSD Science and Technology Education Department
• LMSD Technology Education recent news site