The Arizona School Board Association (ASBA) is opposing legislation that benefits parents and students and protects their privacy.
Senator Kimberly Yee presented a bill last week to the Senate Education Committee that would prohibit the use of student information for the purposes of political gains. There is already Federal Law in place known as FERPA (Family Education Rights and Privacy Act), but as seems to be the norm with the ASBA, multiple laws are needed to protect your private information and that of your children.
When parents register their children for school cell phone numbers, email addresses, and home phone numbers are provided so that the school has a way to contact parents should an emergency arise. Other instances where personal information can be used are for military recruitment, university recruitment, and allowed school vendors. SB1172 specifically excludes school bond overrides and any other type of electioneering.
Rather than taking a stance of yes, we agree that student information should be protected from political use, ASBA representative Janice Palmer informed the committee that while they had no issue with the collection of a reasonable fee for the creation of such lists, the ASBA does take issue with the first line of the bill which reads: “A school district or charter school shall not release information, including information described as directory information pursuant to section 15‑142, to any person or group for the purpose of engaging in political activity, including political activity relating to a bond or override election.”
Palmer recognized that every year there is growing concern that student information is being used for political purposes, both by the legislature and the ASBA. She also admitted that PTA, PTO organizations have access to district student information, and when reminded that allowing PTA, PTO organizations access is violation of Federal Law, Palmer stated that their hands are clean of that. If a person asks for a copy of the district list of students, the district takes them at their word that the information is not to be used for political purposes. Yet, during bond override season parents receive text messages, telemarketing calls, and emails regarding the bond override.
Palmer also went on to state that should the bill pass, their attorneys have advised them that the only remedy for the ASBA to not be in the middle of the issue is to not generate lists at all, excluding the military. Allowed student vendors, under state law, would no longer have access to these lists. (At one time, vendors such as these passed their information to students by way of the classroom and pamphlets were sent home with students.)
This bill, according to Palmer, places the ASBA in a “sticky situation”. Could the sticky situation be how to get around yet another state law that protects students’ and parents’ information? Student information is not public record. Student information is private information that the ASBA seems to want to keep vulnerable to the whim of the person who asks for it.
Senator Yee asked, “At what point do we have privacy for these vulnerable students in the classroom who don’t even know how their information is being used?”
When Janice Palmer was asked to confirm that the ASBA is against student information being used for political speak, she stated that the ASBA was agnostic on this issue; that directory information is provided for various purposes, and basically, your local school board that operates under the ASBA guidelines, is indifferent to how your child’s private information is being used.