Hello again. Thank you so much for your suggestions. I do agree with both of you. I don't want to ruffle anyone's feathers. I actually was thinking of contacting 2 of the board members as I know them from high school.
In the mean time, the email idea is a great one. At the end of last year, I did send out a form requesting email addresses so that we could streamline communication with the parents through this method. However, I only received 26 responses out of 300 students. Not very positive. But in light of the latest news, hopefully more people will send it in once they know there will not be directory. Will keep you posted.
Thank you!
I'm with gj...I wouldn't go around the principal over this. It is a relatively small thing in the big scheme of things and if the school board has passed the rule for eveyone then it'll only put you in a poor light. I did think there was a federal law that made it possible to release information to a third party for school purposes but cannot recall the law. Regardless-we've dropped doing a directory because of our population being related to so many government agencies and parents just weren't comfortable. Perhaps you could publish just an email directory for the adult parents in the classrooms that would allow email contact only (can't be traced to a home location or child name or age). May be a doable work around.
d
I wouldn't recommend doing an end-run around your school board.
I would recommend talking with some of the members and seeing why they did it, maybe reviewing some of the minutes. (A couple board members, including last year's chair, are from our school -- maybe you need to get some parents to run next time.) They may actually have gotten a letter from a lawyer for something last year. If not, then you should get a few parents from the various schools to come to a meeting and request that the board reverse their policy.
Hello again. Thank you for your responses. Apparently, our school board passed some "law" abolishing all directories for all schools in our district even if the parents sign the release forms!!! They are afraid the directory may get into the wrong hands and they will get sued. For what? I have no idea, we always received signed releases before publishing anyone's information. There has to be a way around it. Anyone know the law in NYS? It seems that we should be able to do this outside of school and the board will have nothing to say about it. Any thoughts?
Surely the principal is mistaken. If you collected all the names&addresses outside of school, call it the "Elementary Social Club" and print up a directory, there can't be a law against it. You need to help the principal understand this, she must be mis-reading something, or maybe some parent who doesn't like the directory complained? In which case, you've got to tread carefully and not trap the principal between two parents. Are there other principals in the district you can ask? Or is someone in your group on good terms with the principal? Don't be confrontational. See if you can find out where she heard about the new law and find out more.
