Board member investigated: Brevard County School Board member Andy Ziegler is under investigation for allegedly retaliating against a district employee who had accused him of sexually harassing her last year. The investigation has been going on for about six months, and is being done by the same Tallahassee law firm that cleared Ziegler on the initial accusation. According to documents, the district's director of human resources, Carol Tolx, says she is being "continually harangued" by Ziegler because of her 2017 sexual harassment complaint. Ziegler has denied all charges. Tolx's retaliation accusation centers on an exchange she had with Ziegler at a school board meeting in January in which Ziegler called her analysis of a proposed contract with a company to provide substitute teachers "fictitious" and "fraudulent." Florida Today.

Website trackers: The Pinellas County School District's website, like that of many U.S. schools', is embedded with tracking scripts that install bits of computer code into a user's browser to track their movements on the Internet. The trackers were found last winter by Douglas Levin, an expert on educational technology. He let the district know, and was told by officials that they would be removed. Last month Levin checked again and found 22 trackers still embedded. Most trackers collect information used to improve websites, but some are used to buy and sell personal data or for targeting advertising. New York Times. (more…)