Court rejects request for gunman’s school records

COLUMBUS, Ohio — A request by several media groups for the school records of the man who gunned down nine people in Dayton last year was rejected Thursday by the state Supreme Court.

The groups, including the Associated Press, argued that the student records could provide information on whether authorities properly handled early warning signs from slain gunman Connor Betts.

But the court ruled 6-1 that the law “is unambiguous and is not truly susceptible to differing interpretations ,“according to the majority decision written by Justice Melody Stewart.

“The records of a person who attended a public school can be disclosed only with the consent of the student, if that student is 18 years of age or older,” Stewart wrote. “If that student is deceased, he is no longer available to grant consent.”

Stewart added that if the state Legislature had intended that the death of a person could alter the confidentiality of such records, “it could have expressly enacted such a rule.”

Justice Sharon Kennedy dissented, noting the law refers to records of a student currently attending a public school.

The law “does not prohibit a public school from releasing the records of a former student who is deceased and therefore not currently ‘attending’ that school,” Kennedy wrote.

The court heard arguments for and against releasing the records in June. Ohio law was meant to align with federal law, a statute the U.S. Department of Education has interpreted to mean that students’ privacy rights end if they die, as do legal interpretations in other states, Erin Rhinehart, an attorney representing the media groups, argued at the time.