Scott Monroe reports:
State law requires that we request your child’s Social Security number. But, in order to protect your child’s privacy, you should refuse to give it to us.
A resolution adopted by the Waterville Board of Education last week “respectfully requests that parents protect their child’s privacy by refusing to provide the school with their child’s Social Security number.” The resolution will be mailed out to parents Monday along with a school information packet.
School committees in Winslow and Vassalboro are slated to consider adopting identical resolutions at their meetings on Monday and Tuesday, respectively.
The resolutions come in response to a new state law taking effect this fall — “An Act Improve the Ability of the Department of Education to Conduct Longitudinal Data Studies” — which requires Maine schools to attempt to collect students’ Social Security numbers and submit them to state education officials.
Read more in the Morning Sentinel.
Thumbs up to the Waterville board and all those school districts everywhere who are seeing the light and saying “no” to Social Security numbers or large databases to track students.