Maryland School Policy Forces Students to Surrender Privacy—Is It Constitutional?
A Maryland elementary school’s new device policy is forcing families to surrender student privacy in exchange for education access. This Civic Ledger investigation examines the policy’s constitutional risks—and the broader question of privacy in public schools.
Editor’s Note: While Civic Ledger investigations are typically reserved for members during their research phase, this article is publicly available as we build our founding readership. Final conclusions and updates will remain accessible to all.
The Civic Ledger, as its first project, is investigating a new policy at Chesapeake Science Point Elementary School in Anne Arundel County that may force families to surrender their privacy in order to access public education.
Under the school’s newly adopted Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy, every student must either rent a school-managed Chromebook or submit their personal Chromebook for mandatory “configuration.” According to the school’s official policy documents:
- “Local files will be deleted automatically” during the process.
- The device will then be “registered to the school domain” and subject to “school-based apps” and monitoring tools like GoGuardian.
- The device will remain configured—and under school monitoring—“while your child is a CSP student.”
School officials say this policy is necessary to comply with federal internet safety laws and manage technology costs after pandemic-era funding cuts. However, our legal analysis raises serious constitutional concerns about the policy’s legality and fairness.
Our investigation is focused on answering three specific questions, each rooted directly in the school’s own policy documents:
- Does this mandatory configuration—requiring deletion of all personal data and the installation of continuous monitoring software—constitute an unreasonable search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment?
- Does the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA), the federal law the school cites, actually require schools to wipe private devices and install surveillance tools—or is it being used as a pretext for more invasive control?
- Does this policy violate the unconstitutional conditions doctrine by effectively forcing families to surrender their Fourth Amendment rights as a condition of accessing public education?
These questions are not theoretical. They arise directly from the language in the school’s BYOD policy and its accompanying Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), which frame device submission and monitoring as non-negotiable conditions for students to participate in computer-based learning.
In the coming weeks, we will publish our full findings, including constitutional analysis, alternative policy recommendations, and any formal responses from the school or district.
At stake is a critical question for schools everywhere: Can public education be conditioned on the surrender of digital privacy?