• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

More Districts Review Access to Student Data; Military Recruiter Opt- Out Options Are Among Issues

Posted on: Saturday, 12 November 2005, 15:00 CST

By AMY HETZNER

More area school districts are following the lead of Milwaukee Public Schools by examining how they let parents know about their right to keep student information from military recruiters.

Although many districts have long had a policy of providing student names, addresses and phone numbers to recruiters who request them, school officials say ongoing military conflicts have raised concerns about that practice among some parents.

In places where parents or others have complained about it, district administrators say they are trying to be more explicit in the guidance they give out on how to restrict information given to recruiters.

"As long as Iraq continues to be a war, it will be an issue," said Ken McCormick, principal of Grafton High School.

Grafton is revising its form that allows parents to opt out of having student information sent to a variety of sources by creating a separate form for the military opt-out option. The school took the action after parents complained about not knowing they could keep student contact information from the military, McCormick said.

"For the first time really since Vietnam, people might go fight in a war and get killed," McCormick said. "I think that's changed some people's views of that whole recruiting process. And I think when the war ends, people will not care again."

The No Child Left Behind Act, which was signed into law by President Bush in 2002, required schools to provide student information to military recruiters or risk losing federal education money. But the law also allows parents and high school students to request that their information not be shared with the armed forces.

Before the law, recruiters' access to student information and school campuses was left to the discretion of individual school boards some of which would deny sharing information with the military that they gave to other educational institutions.

But Karyn Rotker, a staff attorney with Wisconsin's chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said schools now need to do a better job of letting parents and students know about their rights.

"It seems pretty clear to me that parental notification's a problem in a lot of places," she said. "People may see something sort of in a handbook saying you can opt out of directory information but not understand what that means. . . . I don't think it's been brought to the forefront. That was certainly the issue in Milwaukee."

MPS leaders agreed in August to take more steps to notify families about their right to prevent names, addresses and phone numbers from being given to the military.

Afterward, the ACLU started collecting information from districts around the state about their notification practices.

Waukesha considers changes

The Waukesha School District was one of those that got a request from the ACLU, and Superintendent David Schmidt acknowledged that the school system probably needs to change its practices.

Until now, parents who wanted to prevent their children's information from being sent to the military had to sign a form saying they didn't want to be part of the student directory. No mention was made, however, that by agreeing to be in the student directory, the student also was agreeing to send information to military recruiters.

"We are in the process right now of rewriting that and, potentially, if things work out how we planned, we will be sending something out to junior and senior parents about that issue," Schmidt said.

One option pursued by other districts has been to give parents a range of institutions from which they can withhold student directory information.

Hamilton High School in Waukesha County, for instance, gives parents the opportunity to prevent student information from going to four sources the student directory, the news media, higher education and military recruiters when students register before the school year.

This school year, parents for 101 students asked that their information not be shared with the military, Hamilton spokeswoman Denise Dorn Lindberg said. That compares with only four students whose names could not be published by local media, she said.

In September, the Racine Unified School District also revised its form allowing parents and students to withhold directory data, after realizing it could be confusing, district spokeswoman Linda Flashinski said.

The new form allows them to choose if they want to deny information to all requesters, military recruiters or colleges instead of leaving them to fill in a blank listing who cannot have the data. It also specifies that colleges and recruiters will be given the student information if parents do not fill out the form.

"It just makes it easier," Flashinski said. "If people want to withhold things, it makes it more understandable."

Several schools, however, said they have had no complaints and have no plans to review what they tell parents about information provided to the military.

Port Washington High School Principal Duane Woelfel said military recruiters aren't contacting the school any more now than they have in the past, and he has no plans to limit access.

"For some of our students, it's a really important option for them," he said.

Copyright 2005, Journal Sentinel Inc. All rights reserved. (Note: This notice does not apply to those news items already copyrighted and received through wire services or other media.)

Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

More News in this Category