Calif. judge allows data release on 10M students
SAN FRANCISCO — In a ruling that is causing some parents concern about their children's privacy, a judge has granted a small, parent-run non-profit working for the rights of disabled children the ability to search sensitive information about more than 10 million California students.
In an order earlier this month, Judge Kimberly Mueller said that information including the name, Social Security number, address and mental and physical assessments of every student who attended public school in California since Jan. 1, 2008, must be made available to a court-appointed data analyst so that it can be analyzed on behalf of the Morgan Hill Concerned Parents Association.
The order stems from a now five-year-old legal battle between the Morgan Hill group and the California State Department of Education over whether students with disabilities receive the free and appropriate public education mandated under federal law. The Morgan Hill group was joined in the case by California Concerned Parents Association, which advocates for students with disabilities statewide.
"We're not looking for specific student information," said Christine English, vice president of the California Concerned Parents Association.
Rather, the group wanted access to the state's data so it could see, for example, if African-American students identified as intellectually disabled were disproportionately in special day classes as opposed to mainstreamed into general education classes. Or whether children who were diagnosed with behavioral issues had a behavioral management plan in place, she said.
The department vehemently denies the allegations that it is not giving disabled students their legally mandated due and is actively defending against the litigation, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson said in a letter to local school districts.
"We have fought the disclosure of any kind of student information all along the way and haven't wavered in that," said Peter Tira, a spokesman with the California Department of Education in Sacramento.
According to English, her group came up with multiple scenarios in which the department could have given it percentages and statistics without it ever seeing individual student data. "We even said, 'You sit in front of your computer terminal and we'll query you and you give us the results.'"
The department refused.
"Our position has been clear, we are fighting and will continue to protect student privacy rights," Tira said.
Finally Judge Mueller, in the eastern district court of California in Sacramento, ordered that the entire database of student data be made available to a special digital master who would perform the requested analysis, English said.
Although the order was posted online on Feb. 1, information about it only surfaced over the weekend, causing a flurry of concern among parent organizations.
Sherry Skelly Griffith, the executive director of the California State Parent Teacher Association, said her office has been fielding multiple queries from the media and parents.
“It’s just hard to fathom that a judge would allow such an overexposure of children’s information,” she said.
The information will be made available to fewer than 10 people who will use it to perform a statistical analysis of how California treats disabled students, the California Concerned Parents Association said in a Facebook posting.
However, some parents posting comments on the page expressed anger that the release was to be made at all.
"You have no rights to my child's personal info. I am an advocate and this is still wrong of a certain group of parents to force all parents to now scramble to whether or not they want their own Personal child's personal private give(n) out," wrote another.
Others were more understanding.
Kathy Ramsey, whose children attend schools in San Francisco, said she feels holding the California Department of Education’s feet to the fire because it hasn’t supplied services that students are entitled to is “a noble cause, but seems like not a very good solution.”
Specific information about individual students will not be available to the public. Mueller issued a Protective Order, which prevents anyone involved in the suit from disclosing confidential data acquired in the course of the lawsuit to anyone aside from the parties involved, their attorneys and consultants and the court.
Once the group had completed its statistical analysis, it is required to "either return or destroy the confidential data at the conclusion of the lawsuit. No student’s identifying records will be disclosed to the public," the parent group said.
60 days to opt out
Still, parents and parent organizations are concerned that parents only have until April 1 to opt out of the data release. An opt-out form has been made available on the California Department of Education’s website.
The state PTA is scrambling to get the word out to parents.
“We don't think the burden of protecting children’s privacy should now have to fall on parents with a less than 60-day window,” Griffith said.