Another parent alleges federal privacy violation
Schools vow to prevent ‘mistake’
BROOKFIELD — Two weeks after school officials acknowledged they failed to properly redact confidential student information under federal law, and vowed to address internal procedures to correct the error, yet another parent has come forward alleging school officials have since provided confidential information belonging to another student.
“We have a very serious problem in our district, the privacy and safety of our students is at risk,” Casey Clarkson said at the Board of Education meeting Wednesday night.
Her comments came after Superintendent John Barile presented to the board on
steps the school district is taking to review internal processes and procedures to ensure the “mistakes” that led to another instance of apparent student privacy violations “didn’t happen again.”
Barile didn’t respond to the mother’s latest allegations at the meeting, but in an email Friday said that the district was “aware” of the parent’s concern.
The News-Times obtained emails earlier this month showing the names of 35 special education students, as well as the number of hours they receive special education services and other information, were visible in documents sent to parents who had requested information about their own children under the U.S. Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.
Commonly referred to as FERPA, the federal education law affords parents the legal right to access their children’s education records, the right to seek to have the records amended, and the right to have some control over the disclosure of personally identifiable information from the education records, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
After “self-disclosing” the error and apologizing to affected parents in an email, Brookfield’s director of special education services, Amy DeNicola-Hickman, questioned whether any FERPA violations had actually occurred, telling The News-Times, “there was no confidential information” released.
Barile said the improper disclosures occurred after a failed attempt to “black out” the names listed in a correspondence between teachers and staff members.
‘Six point plan’ to prevent violations
Barile said following the redaction errors reported earlier this month, he and other officials developed a “six point plan” including utilizing technology to ensure redactions adequately hide identifiable information, while reviewing internal practices and adding training for staff responsible for delivering FERPA and Freedom of Information requests.
He also said the district would explore the possibility of hiring a part-time dedicated clerk to manage the records requests, in addition to performing audits of random files to make sure they do not include information belonging to other students.
Christine Chinni, an attorney representing Brookfield schools, said “FERPA is a federal law that is about student records,” and consists of two main sections: one outlining a parent’s right to see their child’s records and the other ensuring confidentiality of those records to others.
In her 30 years practicing as an education lawyer, Chinni said, “virtually all FERPA violations are inadvertent” and typically occur when a student’s information is accidently included in another’s file or, in cases where files included hundreds of pages, when a school district staff member accidentally misses information that should be redacted.
“There is no reporting requirement for a FERPA violation and no agency to whom it must be reported,” Chinni explained. “Instead, a school district must immediately notify affected parents while working to address the issues that caused the error in order to correct it.”
Board of Education Chair Bob Belden wanted to be sure the district could go after the root cause behind the redaction errors — human error — to eliminate any future issues. He also asked the superintendent to provide ongoing reports on progress with addressing the matter.
“Given it has been a notable issue, enough to be a front-page article in the newspaper, I would think as a board we would like to hear an ongoing report on progress,” Belden said. Barille agreed.
“We want to move forward, and we are working on it and we want to ensure our parents we are working really hard, and we don’t want to make one mistake,” he said. “Of course, they are inadvertent, no one does it on purpose, but we can’t afford to have those mistakes — it is confidential information.”
Most recent complaint
Clarkson explained to the Board of Education how she became aware of the previously reported redaction error after another parent notified her that her son’s information had been given out in a FERPA request, along with information related to several other students.
Frustrated with what she perceived as a “lack of clarity” from the school district on the matter, Clarkson said Wednesday she filed a FERPA request of her own. When she picked up the requested documents last week, she claimed she “was given a document sharing the information of yet another student in the district — this time, no attempt of redacting was made.” She couldn’t be reached for further comment.
The information included the other student’s name, grade level, address and phone number along with the names of the student’s parents, their signatures, and academic concerns and special education referral documents, according to Clarkson.
“I am not out to get the district, I am out to protect my children,” Clarkson said. “I am appalled these mistakes keep happening.”