Schools object to ordered release
Del Norte education officials are protesting an order from a federal judge to release sensitive information for more than 10 million California school children to lawyers and consultants representing two parent-led special education advocacy groups.
The information includes names, Social Security numbers, medical information, disciplinary records and progress reports for students who have attended a California public school since Jan. 1, 2008.
Del Norte County Unified School District trustees on Thursday directed Superintendent Jeff Harris to prepare an amicus brief supporting the California Department of Education and protesting the data release.
The Department of Education is defending itself against a lawsuit spearheaded by the Morgan Hill Concerned Parents Association and California Concerned Parents Association, who allege the department failed to provide oversight for special education students in the Santa Clara community.
In addition to filing the amicus brief, school trustees and officials are encouraging Del Norte parents to fill out and mail an objection form to the Sacramento-based federal judge in the case, U.S. District Judge Kimberly J. Mueller. The completed forms must be mailed to the court by April 1.
“Our responsibility to our families is to let them know,” Harris said. “We’re proposing to do that by mail, to let them know by phone, to give them a link from our website and to make those forms available to families in our district office and potentially our school site offices.”
On Feb. 1, Mueller ruled the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) permitted disclosure of student records to comply with a court order. The judge has set a status hearing for Monday to revisit the order following public response.
Christine English, vice president of the California Concerned Parents Association, said her organization and the Morgan Hill Concerned Parents Association only requested aggregate student data kept in the state’s electronic databases.
“Parents are of this opinion that we’re getting their child’s physical records and we’re not,” English said. “We’re getting their derivative data. We’re not getting any information at the district level.”
The Morgan Hill Concerned Parents Association initially filed the lawsuit in 2011 prior to the inception of the California Concerned Parents Association, English said.
At that point the suit applied only to special education students and their families in Morgan Hill Unified School District. But afterwards, parents from across the state reported that their school districts weren’t in compliance with special education laws and oversight from the state was lacking. More plaintiffs were added to the case, English said, and its scope expanded to include students statewide.
As the lawsuit has progressed, English said the California Department of Education hasn’t been forthcoming with their data. Attorneys for the plaintiffs have met with the defendants attorneys more than 15 times and has corresponded with the state more than 50 times to request data, but for the most part the department refused, English said.
“At one point they did provide some information to the court, but it was token in nature and it wasn’t able to answer the plaintiff’s question of whether or not there was appropriate oversight by the California Department of Education to ensure compliance with the school districts,” she said. “We’re five years in and we’re only at the discovery process because there hasn’t been cooperation on the side of the California Department of Education.”
In addition to ordering the Department of Education to release student data, Mueller also issued a protective order that keeps counsel and experts from both parties from disclosing any confidential information, according to a press release from the California Concerned Parents Association. Any information presented to the court will be presented under seal and will not become part of the public record, according to the press release.
Mueller also retained a special master, an expert in cyber security and data breach prevention, to ensure the plaintiff’s representatives who have access to the student records follow strict protocol set by the court.
The California Concerned Parents Association and the Morgan Hill Concerned Parents Association will not have access to the data, according to the association’s press release.
Mueller has also appointed a magistrate judge who will work with the special master and both litigants to ensure that protocol is “uncompromisingly observed and applied,” according to the press release.
Despite English’s assertion, California Department of Education spokesman Peter Tira said the state repeatedly offered and provided information with redacted student identification numbers, but it wasn’t good enough. Earlier this month, the department notified school districts filling them in on the case and asking them to distribute the objection form to parents.
“We’re extremely protective of the privacy rights of students and families,” Tira said. “We’ve been opposed to any release that (includes) personally identifiable information.”
Tira pointed out that the judge’s order applies to 6.2 million students currently attending K-12 schools and about 4 million who have graduated and moved on. And even though parents and students 18 years and older have the ability to object to the ruling, they do not have the ability to opt out.
“It’s ultimately up to the judge to decide whether to honor those objections,” Tira said.
Harris, who found out about the ruling last week, said English’s assertion that all the plaintiffs in the case want is the aggregate student data is different than what the California Department of Education told school districts. He pointed out that because the release applies to individual student records, the California School Boards Association and the Association for California School Administrators oppose Mueller’s order.
“We analyze the aggregate data here all the time and I don’t have a problem telling you how many Hispanic, American Indian, African American or Anglo kids we have in special education or whatever,” he said. “What we’ve been told is they want complete individual student records that are individually identifiable.”
Even though the ruling came as a surprise to some board members, teachers and a handful of parents already know about it.
Amber Tiedeken-Cron, a special education teacher at Joe Hamilton Elementary School, said she has even fielded questions from her fifth-graders.
“I had three students ask me if I was going to have to release their information to the government and I had to calm them down,” she said. “I had to explain to them what it was.”
To access a link to the objection form, visit www.delnorte.k12.ca.us. For more information about the plaintiffs’ argument, visit californiaconcernedparents.org.