Kaleb Causey reports:
The concerns over whether the Ouachita Parish schools will be able to release honor rolls, sports rosters or even yearbooks can finally be put to rest.
The Ouachita Parish School Board adopted a policy Tuesday afternoon that will allow the schools to release personally identifiable student information after the practice was forbidden by the state Legislature in 2014.
The conflict the school board experienced may be an example of unintended consequences. In its attempts to protect student data and privacy, some acceptable disclosures suddenly became illegal.
The new policy adopted by the School Board would allow for the release of information such as sports rosters, information to yearbook providers, honor rolls, student participation in extracurricular activities and using student information around the schools.
“If we didn’t pass the policy, come next week when children come back into school, whereas we always put the children’s names outside the door so that they’ll know where their homeroom was going to be, those are identifiable student information and would not have been allowed,” Superintendent Don Coker said. “This policy that we’re doing now takes care of those kinds of things. I think it’s a good first move for us.
Under the new policy, parents can opt out if they do not want their child’s information disclosed for those uses.
Read more on The News Star. KNOE also covers the board policy and issue.
Now what happens to all the schools in Louisiana? Will they wind up violating the new state law?