Hi:

We have been informed by our Principal that we may not use the photos we take of children in our different activities or events our PTO does, on our newsletters and web site.

What are your thoughts about this and how are you handling this?

Thanks for your input!

Our school/district has a similar policy, and we understand the possible concerns. We have put up photos where you see kids, but they're not identifiable: eg, facing away.

Does your school have the parents signed a waiver at the beginning of the year? Ours does and this gives the school the right to use photos of the students for yearbooks or other functions. Example would be the board the PTO uses at different events to show what we are doing for the school. We have all sorts of pictures of the students but we just have to make sure they have a photo waiver on file and if so we can use their pictures for a school related event. Maybe your school could look into something like that.

There's also a difference between what can be posted inside the school, and what can be posted on a public web site.

Yes, that is true. I forgot about her having the website listed there. Maybe she can ask the principle if it would be ok to create a waiver for the school and pto website. May not have to many takers but its a thought! Its hard to get pics of kiddos not look ing at the camera...lol, if they are anything like mine they are camera hogs!

We got around this by asking if it's ok if we only use photos of PTA member's children who've given spedific permission.

So when we want to use a picture, we email it to the parent asking if we can use it on the flyer or the website and save the reply.