I think the article skips a little too much over what the school did at each step, trying to force the students to back down. Now, as someone who works quite a bit in network security, I know that high school computer networks are about as insecure as you can get, and I'm sure that the school realizes that as well (especially after this). However, if you keep disciplining students (detention, suspention, etc.) as they said they were, and the student keeps breaking the regulations, then by all means call in the police and escalate the matters.
I think the major blame lies with the kids who think they can be cool and outsmart the system, browse porn on school computers, and spy on their teachers. I know at some point in time in my life, I would have thought it'd be amazingly cool to do - but thankfully I'm past that
The kids couldn't seem to get a handle on when to back down and accept the regulations, and for that they should do lots (several hundred or more) hours of community service, pay fines, etc. A felony charge will really fuck them up, as at least some of them must be sharp enough to go out, find password crackers, and get number crunching on the new password. They might have legitimate careers in front of them where a security clearance would be denied due to the charge - and so that's the only thing making me back down from saying they deserve the book thrown at them.
The parents, on the other hand, are just despicable. When I broke my school's computer regulations (oh, probably 10 years ago), my parents were
much harsher on me than the school system was. They suspended me for a day, my parents grounded me for months. Yes, the kids were clever. No, the kids were not right. So punish your kids.
Rant over
