November 17, 2005
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
media@aclu.org PROVIDENCE, RI -- The
American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island today commended the state
Department of Education for issuing an advisory to all school district
superintendents, reminding them of their obligation to protect the privacy
rights of students in interactions with military recruiters. The advisory,
issued this week by Commissioner Peter McWalters, follows an ACLU survey
released in August, which revealed that many local school districts did not have
proper procedures in place to inform parents and students about their legal
right to control the release of student information to the
military.
“Aggressive military recruiting tactics have become a
real concern for many parents and students, unaware that schools were handing
over personal information to the armed forces,” said ACLU of Rhode Island
Executive Director Steven Brown. “We are pleased that the Department of
Education has taken steps to ensure that the privacy rights of both parents and
students will be better protected by school districts.”
At issue is
a provision in the federal No Child Left Behind Act that requires school
districts to provide student names, addresses and phone numbers on request to
various branches of the U.S. military for recruiting purposes. But that same law
also requires that schools give both parents and students the opportunity to not
have that information disclosed without written parental consent.
However, in a survey conducted over the summer, the ACLU of Rhode
Island found that while many schools provided opt-out forms for parents to sign,
none of the schools reviewed had similar forms for use by high school students
under 18 years of age. The Department of Education advisory specifically
instructs school districts to provide all secondary school students a form
giving them that option, and includes a sample form that school districts can
use. All school districts will now be required to submit the opt-out forms to
the Department.
The Commissioner’s advisory also addresses other
problems uncovered by the ACLU survey. The ACLU found that some school districts
used all-purpose opt-out forms, instead of ones limited to the military; thus,
parents were not given a choice of, for example, allowing directory information
to be provided to institutions of higher education, but not the military. The
new advisory rejects such an all-or-nothing approach. The ACLU survey had also
found that some districts provided very short deadlines for parents to respond
to opt-out requests. The new advisory states that the opt-out forms must contain
“a reasonable deadline for submission.”
For more information on the ACLU’s survey, go to:
www.aclu.org/Privacy/Privacy.cfm?ID=19010&c=253&SubsiteID=44
