School district reviews its privacy policy after disclosure

SASKATOON After a student allegedly made a threat against a school earlier this year involving guns, a Good Spirit School Division employee breached the student’s privacy by shared too much of his personal information, according to Saskatchewan’s Commissioner of Information and Privacy.

Students and a substitute teacher reported overhearing a student make a threat against the school, which triggered a ‘violent threat risk assessment.’ A week later, the employee in question discussed details of the assessment with the student’s classmates and then sent a letter home to parents.

The letter included the specific wording of the threat, including an “opinion that the subject individual’s family are very responsible gun owners,” that the student couldn’t access weapons, that that the student was suspended and the length of the suspension, Ron Kruzeniski wrote in his report, issued Aug. 9.

The Yorkton-area school division reported the breach to Kruzeniski’s office, and he opened an investigation on Feb. 8. In the meantime, Good Spirit notified the student’s parents and sent a letter to them. The school division apologized to the student’s parents.

The parents made a complaint about the breach to Kruzeniski on March 3. “They contend that members of the community are treating their family negatively since the disclosure,” Kruzeniski wrote in his report.