Jeff Gorman reports:
An Illinois appeals court shot down a school district’s plan to place audio-recording equipment in special-education classrooms, saying it would violate a state eavesdropping law.
Denise Plock and three other parents sued Freeport School District No. 145 to stop its plan to install the audio recorders.
The district decided to install audio-recording cameras after a teacher and aide resigned amid allegations of abusing disabled elementary students. The alleged abuse included slapping, pushing, force-feeding and verbally degrading students, and abandoning them in the time-out area and blowing whistles in their ears.
The plaintiff parents didn’t object to their classrooms being videotaped, but they said any audio recording would violate their rights under the Fourth Amendment and the Illinois Eavesdropping Act.
Read more on Courthouse News.
Related: court opinion (pdf), Plock v. Board of Education of Freeport School District No. 145.