I don't know about the legalities. Is the PTO even under the provence of the school district's legal dept.?
I believe the PTO prez is putting in a complaint to Yahoo. I don't know how much luck she'll have with that. We're not a communist country trying to crush dissidents, so I doubt Yahoo will surrender the user's name.
I'm not unsympathetic to the person doing the email, and tend to take a direct approach. So I emailed them, and said their info was interesting, but I'd feel more comfortable if they'd identify themselves. They wouldn't, so I sent another reply saying that it was a bad idea to use the directory info. It tends to annoy people, and I also said it was just like spam. Then I said that if they felt so strongly about things, they should start up a Yahoo discussion group, and let people choose to join and discuss (or not).
The thing is, the issue the person raised IS interesting, and it's about a policy that was put into place without (apparently) enough parental notification or discussion. To me, it seems like a bad situation all around.
It's still wrong to take advantage of a school directory, and use it anonymously, imo, but that feeling battles against a deep mistrust I have of the education system and its enormous bureaucracy and sometimes weird decisions.
if you have a disclaimer on the form, thats terrfic.
after that, yuor not responsible for others actions. only your own.
if someone doesnt like what they recieve, they do what they do when they get any unwanted emial or phone call (telemarkter etc that used the phone book), contact the sender directly and request your name be removed from their distrib list. try it and see what happens.
This happened at our school last year. The board asked the person to stop and then everything hit the fan. There are different opinions out there but it boils down to proper use of the directory, it is not proper use to mass mail, spam, people who do not sign up for your message. Some people just think their rights are more important than others and nothing will make them see things any differently.
I have not encountered anything along these lines personally, since our school is only just putting out it's first directory ever. However we are giving parents an opt-out if they do not wish to have their contact info included. If a situation like this occurred, well, they chose to put that informaton out there, and they are also free to contact the sender and request that the emails cease. I don't think there's much you can do to control it, unfortunately.
