Call for letters

Written by: John Schneider on Apr 19, 2006 11:02 AM EDT

Linked to groups: DFA Anne Arundel

Hello,

At our last monthly meeting, we reviewed our efforts with the Anne Arundel County Board of Education on firming up their policy and regulations concerning student privacy, military recruiters and the No Child Left Behind Act. After many months of working with the board, they have put out a new policy and supporting regulations on this important topic. A thirty day public comment period is now in process.

If you are a parent in the AACPS system, and especially if you have high school age students, please consider writing a public comment letter on this new policy. Generally, the board of education has done a good job, but is missing one key element, described below. (The proposed policy and regulations have been posted in our documents section). Thanks for your help on this.

Below is background information for letters to the Anne Arundel County Board of Education. The policy that your comments apply to is:

"ACCESS TO STUDENT INFORMATION"

The comment period is open until May 6.

The address to send comments is:

Anne Arundel County Public Schools
2644 Riva Road
Annapolis, Maryland 21401

Comments may also be emailed to: publiccomment@aacps.org


Description:

Under the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act, military recruiters have access to private student information, and can obtain it from high schools upon request, without notification or permission of the student or parent.

The same law also gives students and parents the right to "opt out" of the release of this information.
The Anne Arundel County Board of Education has proposed new regulations that require high schools to notify parents and students of their right to withhold their information from release to military recruiters.

Problem:

While the regulations require informing parents and students of their right to withhold information, the Policy Statement that creates these new regulations does not discuss the "opt out". Both the Policy Statement and the regulations should include the "opt out" notification language.

Action:

A letter should be sent to the Board of Education stating that the Policy Statement and regulations BOTH should include a description of a student or parents "opt out" right to withhold information from release to military recruiters.

Tags:
Location: Anne Arundel County, MD 21146