More grounds for removal of Paladino: violating student privacy
Austin Harig and Carl Paladino
On June 22, Commissioner MaryEllen Elia will hold a hearing on the legal petition of the Buffalo Board of Education to remove Carl Paladino from his seat on the Board.
Though Paladino has made many outrageous and even racist comments, including most recently about former President Obama and his wife Michelle, the best legal grounds for removing him, according to the Board's attorney, is for violating law or specific Board policies. Thus the Board is focusing its appeal on the basis of Paladino's breaching the confidentiality of discussions while the Board was in Executive Session.
Yet unmentioned so far in terms of these proceedings is how last spring, Paladino violated several student privacy laws, both federal and state, in breaching the privacy of a Buffalo high school student, Austin Harig, who ran against him in the School Board elections and lost by only 132 votes. On election night, Paladino revealed to the media that Harig had been recently suspended, which is personal student information barred from disclosure by education officials such as Paladino by the federal law known as FERPA as well as two state laws.
See the letter below that we sent yesterday to the Buffalo Board President, Dr. Nevergold, on this issue, on behalf of the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy and NYS Allies for Public Education.
Dr. Barbara Seals Nevergold
President, Buffalo Board of Education
President, Buffalo Board of Education
By email: BANevergold@buffaloschools.org
April 21, 2017
Dear Dr. Nevergold and the Buffalo Board of Education:
We support your efforts to remove Carl P. Paladino from the Buffalo Board of Education for official misconduct in breaching confidential discussions that occurred in the Board’s executive sessions.
We would like to add that Mr. Paladino breached the confidentiality of education records when he announced to the media that his opponent in NYC Public School Parents: More grounds for removal of Paladino: violating student privacy:
