PTO Today

Today I went to the school's secretary and asked her for the addresses of the students, and she gave them to me...Iwanted to send letters about the meetings to the parents in the mail...and as i was walking to my car the principal came running out and said that she couldn't giv eme the info, because it is isllegal..i argured for a minute and asked how come the pto's o the past had been given the info, and how else was I to be able to send home lettes in the mail, and also as to how can it be illegal when the PTO is part of the schools...this principal allows her college friends who have nothing to do withthe school, to come in an use school eqipment and supplies and use the comptuer on which they would have acces to all info....is she right is it Illegal?

It is if the parents have signed a do not disclose statement for the childs file... an easy way to get around this is to send a note home with the students telling them what you want to do, ask for permission to send it out, and their address, as long as they have provided you with the info and given permission, it is ok

Send the information home in each child's school folder. This will save a fortune in postage and will get around the "do not disclose" restriction. We have a number of families at our school that do not want their information provided. We send all of our communication home in the children's folders. We provide the copy paper and the school staff makes all of our copies.

No, it's not [B]illegal[/B] to give the information (if it's been edited to remove those familes that filed a do-not-disclose request). However, it's likely against [B]school policy[/B]. Here's how it works:

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) is a federal law says that schools cannot release student information without parents/students' permission except DIRECTORY INFORMATION. Directory information (stuff they can disclose unless a parent objects in writing) includes:

Student's name
Participation in officially recognized activities and sports
Address
Telephone listing
Weight and height of members of athletic teams
Electronic mail address
Photograph
Degrees, honors, and awards received
Date and place of birth
Major field of study
Dates of attendance
Grade level
The most recent educational agency or institution attended

The intent is to protect the [B]educational[/B] records, not the basic [B]contact/profile[/B] information. All the above is public information, so that's why schools can have an "opt out" policy on directories. Note - without this, we couldn't have directories, yearbooks, newspaper writeups of student accomplishments, school newspapers, etc.

Your school should have a policy that talks about this type of info (probably in the handbook). It's possible the school or district has a stricter policy than federal or state law requires.

As far as releasing the information, most districts require that requests for this go through a central point of contract. And they may charge a recovery fee for providing the information. That being said, the school/principal/staff may informally share the information with the PTO and others. (How many policies exist that don't get ignored or bent from time to time?)

In our elementary school, I could have requested the information via the district and they would have charged me a $35 fee. Technically, that's what should have happened. But our principal always just gave it to us for PTO use, knowing we would work closely with them on how it was used.

Okay, here's the short answer. Check the handbook where it refers to "Directory Information". Tell your principal that you understand the federal/state laws protect students educational information, but all you want is the [B]directory information[/B] - which is public information (unless your district policy/handbook says otherwise) and which the school has traditionally supplied to the PTO for this use.

Thank you so much for all of your tips and information, I really appreciate it.
And JB what you said confirms what I had been thinking...I actually want to send the stuf in the mail so that the parents will get them...Many times the kids forget to give the noices to the parents...and also teachers forget to send the notices home, and this gets to be a problem especially when you are short on time.

JB do you know where I can find that statute?

Here's a link to [B]FERPA[/B]

So from a compliance point of view, you'll have federal law (FERPA), then your state law, then district policy. I think most states just adopt the federal version in whole. Your district policy should be published in something routinely handed out to all student families -probably the handbook. Then administratively, they probably have an internal policy on who is allowed to give out the information. (That's the one that frequently gets bent.)

Also - when you talk to your principal, please keep in mind he may not deliberately be blocking you. Teachers/principals no longer have the luxury of merely teaching. There are tax rules, law suits, employment issues, privacy concerns...the list goes on an on. They can't be an expert at everything, but they sure can be held responsible for everything. So try to approach it that you are trying to help, not "Gotcha - you are WRONG!".

Please post back and tell us what happens.

Our middle school PTO mails home newsletters three times per year. We are given student names and addresses on sheets of mailing labels which we stick right on to the newsletter. Here's the catch though - we have to stick the labels on in the school so that no one copies the addresses for future use. IMO, this is not something worth arguing over since the info is still getting home. If your principal can be convinced to do something similar, hopefully a compromise will be reached.

As the PTO, you are only allowed general info on students - classroom lists with the names of students and their teachers. If the family is a PTO family and they have provided you (on one of your forms) their names, addresses and phone numbers, then you can collect that. However, you cannot get the school listing from the school.

The PTO must collect their own data for their directory or to mail out communications. You could provide the school with all the stuffed envelopes and they could mail them for you at your expense, but they can't give you personal information.
Send home communications such as that via backpack mail. (All teachers send home the flyer with the children) There's no cost to the PTO and it still gets home.

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Doing it for my one and only ~~ my son!

OneandOnly - that may be the policy within your district, but it's not true across the board. FERPA and state law defines what is considered public information. Subject to your own district's published guidelines, personal information - as defined by FERPA as being directory information - is absolutely available to pretty much anyone who asks for it.