In Florida, and mom and daughter duo were arrested for “fraudulently accessing confidential student information” and allegedly using it to rig the results of a homecoming queen race, a thing which is made up and has no actual consequences on the world around it.
The Washington Posts reports that while “instances of voter fraud in U.S. elections are vanishingly rare,” Tate High School in Escambia County School district did have its homecoming queen election results tampered with. According to local officials, Laura Rose Carroll, who worked as faculty elsewhere in the same school district, illegally accessed student information system FOCUS to view all sorts of confidential records, including account information concerning 212 Tate High School students, and allegedly inflate the votes for her daughter’s homecoming queen win.
Arrest documents obtained by the Washington Post show that at least 117 of the votes cast were from the same I.P. address. At least use a VPN next time!
Soon after the tampering came to light, Carroll’s daughter was expelled and taken to Escambia Regional Juvenile Detention Center on Monday, which seems excessive and extreme. Carroll was also suspended, arrested, and then released after posting a $6000 bond. “Throughout her four years at Tate High School, Carroll’s daughter openly used her log-in to access school district records, according to nine written statements from students and teachers provided to investigators,” the Post reports.
“She looks up all of our group of friends grades and makes comments about how she can find our test scores all the time,” one student wrote.
“I recall times that she logged onto her mom’s FOCUS account and openly shared information, grades, schedules, etc., with others. She did not seem like logging in was a big deal and was very comfortable with doing so,” another student said.
Sure, nobody should look at their classmates’ grades or personal information, and I bet there was a very nice set of students who fairly won the popularity contest at homecoming. But jail?
DISCUSSION
“All I’m saying is that if I ever start referring to these as the best years of my life - remind me to kill myself.” — Randy Floyd, Dazed and Confused
<me watching the last scene of Grease where they're singing We'll Always Be Together>
Me: Mom, is that really true? I never want to see these people again after graduation because most of them are terrible people.
Mom: no, honey, that’s just what people say on graduation day. Real life bears out much differently so don’t worry.