This is exploding, as well it should, so I'll drop the story after this post and we can all follow it in the news- but there are a couple more things I'll point you to first: Martin McKeay has a good post on his blog, and there's a fairly damning interview on a local TV station with the family involved. After watching the interview, it is really hard to see how the school district comes out of this alive. The Superintendent of Schools has a new statement up on their site, compare that to the family's statements in the interview. Someone is flat out lying; I don't know who, but for now the school district has not done a good job of earning my trust. The school claims everything is logged, if that's true, why are the numbers changing? Yesterday the schools said 28 laptops had been recovered with the software, today they say 18. Maybe they just suck at PR. Alright, not "maybe".
If you are competent, respectful of privacy, and have IT or educational experience, and are looking for your next job, I would suggest keeping an eye on this site: http://www.lmsd.org/sections/about/depart/hr/default.php?m=&t=departments&p=depart_hr_empop
Jack