Students’ ‘right to privacy’ laws continue to cause confusion

In two consecutive legislative sessions, state Rep. John Schroder, R-Covington, has put forth legislation that has been signed into law creating both simplified student records with unique student identification numbers, and providing for a student’s right to privacy.
However, it is the latter that continues to cause confusion in school districts.
“There is still a lot of discussion going on,” said Ellan Kay Baggett at the Acadia Parish School Board’s July meeting. “It’s still in flux.”
Baggett, the district’s executive director of personnel/operations, has done her best to decipher the laws and has turned to outside help through Policy Alerts and even the state’s Department of Education in hopes to get some clarity.
It would appear, however, just 14 days before the law’s effective date of Aug. 1 and 26 days before school starts in the parish, there are more questions than answers.
The matter, which was scheduled to be adopted during the regular July meeting on Monday, was tabled until Wednesday, July 22, for committee meetings by unanimous vote.
At issue is the determination of exactly what — if any — student information can be released by the schools or the central office. That could include such information as student achievements, honor roll lists, or athletic team members.
The matter is still under debate and many school districts in Louisiana are awaiting further guidance on the matter.
During the 2014 Louisiana Legislative Session, Schroder presented House Bill 1076 – a substitute for HB 946 he presented earlier in the session – that was later signed by Gov. Bobby Jindal as Act 837 of 2014.
Under Act 837 of 2014, Revised Statute 17:3913 and 3996(B)(34) was enacted relative to student information. The bill as it was enacted and signed into law looked to limit the type of information that is collected on students and examined the particulars of that action (i.e. who would be granted access, what information should be prohibited, etc.). This information was described as “personally identifiable information,” which in the Act is defined as information that can be used on its own or with other information to identify, contact or locate a single individual.
This information includes, but is not limited to:
• information that can be used to distinguish or trace an individual’s identity (examples include full name, Social Security number, date and place of birth, mother’s maiden name or biometric records);
• information that is linked or is linkable to an individual (medical, educational, financial and employment information); and
• two or more pieces of information that separately or when linked together can be used to reasonably ascertain the identity of the person.
Exceptions were made in the law for the divulgence of information to entities like the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education an Department of Education as well as local school boards themselves, but even places like school boards are rather restrictive in what information they can be privy to, much less release.
It was a complete overhaul of the student information law.
This year, Schroder authored HB 718 which amended and re-enacted the statute through a clarification that may have caused even more confusion. Now signed as Act 228 of 2015 by Jindal, Section H, as it was rewritten in Act 228, has provided either a loophole or more clamping down, depending upon perspective.
Some groups believe that the language of the section of the law allows the school board to adopt particular policies on what is and isn’t alright to share without direct parental consent; whereas other groups believe the exact opposite.
Section H of the law now reads as follows:
“Nothing in this Section shall prohibit a person employed in a public school or other person authorized by the superintendent of the public school or school system from being provided or having access to a student’s records in accordance with a policy adopted by the local public school board for such purpose.”
The Acadia Parish School Board hopes that by its committee meetings Wednesday, some of the fog will have lifted from these bills and a policy can be adopted officially in August.