Parents want teacher e-mail? Here’s what the court says
May 5, 2010 by Jake SimmsPosted in: In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views, Legal News
Teachers can criticize students in their professional e-mail — but there’s a caveat:
Parents have a right to view those electronic records, says Kentucky’s attorney general’s office. This decision could spur similar ones in other states.
Here’s the skinny: Jonathan Sholar of Princeton, KY, wanted his daughter Jessica’s school records. Not just grades and disciplinary notes — but all notes, paper or electronic, and e-mail in her record.
Caldwell County school district agreed to turn over Jessica’s transcripts, but not the rest of it, citing teacher and administrator privacy rights.
Of course, Mr. Sholar sued. And the D.A. ruled that the school’s actions violated the Open Records Act. Now the district must hand all the records over.
Bottom line: Parents’ rights trump any professional or privacy rights by teachers or administrators.
What’s your take on this decision? Could it spur other parents to go fishing for teachers’ notes? Share your take in the comments section.
Tags: caldwell county school district, jessica sholar, jonathan sholar, kentucky, open records act, privacy
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May 7th, 2010 at 1:14 pm
This will enhance professionalism.
May 7th, 2010 at 1:43 pm
If the email is to the student, parents should have access. If it’s between teachers and administrators about a student, perhaps not. However, if a teacher is corresponding with a student in high school via email, parents should have the ability and the right to see those.
May 7th, 2010 at 2:49 pm
The basic premise has not changed: If you don’t want people to read it, don’t write it.
May 7th, 2010 at 3:21 pm
Dee.
Not sure what the distinction is between a “student” and a student in “high school” is, but they’re both minors and the parents are their legal guardians. The records should be an open book to the parents for the sole reason of professional and ethical conduct.
If two teachers are corresponding about a student moving from 3rd grade to 4th grade, and the 3rd grade teacher is “filling them in” on some issues to watch out for, the 4th grade teacher now has a preconceived notion of what that student is like. Therefore they don’t have an equal chance in the school system. The same is true if the student is a “teachers pet”. They now have an advantage over others in the same class.
I work in the IT industry and deal with issues such as this all the time. I’m all for allowing a parent/legal guardian access to any/all correspondence that makes reference to said student…whether it’s between teachers, teacher to student or what. If that student is referenced anywhere, then it’s fair game.
What I’m saying…if you DON’T want to be in the line of fire…don’t put it in writing, e-mail, voicemail or even say it outloud. It WILL come to bite you. The idea of assumed privacy these days are over.
TSG
May 7th, 2010 at 3:25 pm
As a professor, (yes, we will likely be next), I agree with Johnny but at the same time this is basically opening up any and all correspondence between two people to be read by anyone. If mail is directed to student, then the student already has it. Otherwise, all other information should be between those that have corresponded with each other.
May 7th, 2010 at 3:58 pm
I also work in an IT department for a college in Ireland, email is a communications medium and as such can be used from teachers to students and vice versa, but also it can be used by teachers to admin staff and fellow teachers, the messages being transmitted may contain ‘information’ about One or all students in a class, e.g the message may concern the student while not being addressed to the student, while I agree that this information should also be freely available I don’t think that it represents student/teacher correspondance. But what is the gripe here? – nobodys privacy has been violated. the school should have responed with all correspondance to/ from the student in question- but as the professor has stated – this information is already in pocession of the intended recepient anyway.
correspondance between/amonst the faculty and admin staff should be governed by interdeprtmental privacy controls – I don’t see why these correspondance should be of concern to any parent/gaurdian unless they take issue with the policies of the faculty itself and ‘smell a rat’ which I suspect is the case here. Nevertheless the mail system is offical, it’s backed up by your IT staff, its kept offsite for years and can be restored for scrutiny at a moments notice. So if you can’t say it to thier face then certainly don’t bloddy write it down
May 7th, 2010 at 4:35 pm
If parents do their job right, it shouldn’t matter what the teachers are saying about their child. I am sick of parents leaving the parenting to the teachers! If my kid does something in school or acts inappropriately, the teachers have every right to call him on it (email or otherwise), and you can be sure he will have consequences at home too.
May 7th, 2010 at 5:54 pm
I agree that the parents should have access…
…up until the student is 18. At that point the student should be required to sign a waiver giving the parents access.
May 7th, 2010 at 7:47 pm
My understand is that the records requested were not necessarily addressed to the student, but were about the student. I agree that as professionals we should be professional when discussing students, no matter the media. Unfortunately, messages can be taken out of context or misconstrued.
May 9th, 2010 at 9:48 pm
It seems to me that teachers bear the brunt of control by both departments and parents. As a patient at a hospital do I have the right to get transcripts of emails from one surgeon to another about my case? Would we, as patients, even dream of asking to see the? Would we allow that? I don’t think so. We view doctors, lawyers, accounts etc as professionals who have rights as professionals but oh no not teachers. If a parent feels a teacher (or school) is bullying their child or discriminating against them in some way then it should only be sorted out in the realm of the court, certainly not outside it. The access to the transcripts should be allowed as part of court proceedings. No one has thought that a child could be at risk from their parent in some cases. What of their right to protection from abuse? Said email may put them at further risk from their parent. As far as a teacher passing on information to another teacher about a child’s performance or personality – that happens verbally anyway so that form of dsicrimination can’t be avoided. So what are you going to do? Ban teachers from talking? Each case needs to be investigated individually and maybe we need to start building relationships of trust between one another. Hard work, yes, fraught with problems, yes, but worth it.
May 10th, 2010 at 1:06 pm
Just wondering who is sorting through all these emails. Who is watching? Who is listening? Who cares?
Who is watching and who is listening: First people should understand with email accounts from work- that your employer owns the content. It can be read without your approval, or notifying you about it.
People are slowly learning that electronic conversations have the potential to live decades beyond your delete buttons.
I am not certain what a parent expects to fine in emails about their children from teachers, but I would not be surprise the parent is seeking information about what the teachers are saying about the parents.
With all forms of communications people should be professional, responsible, and non-judgmental. Never the less conversations become hear say, while electronic communications become lasting written documentation.
May 10th, 2010 at 2:24 pm
Once parents view the e-mails, the damage is done. Jesse is right — parents could be looking for comments about themselves, not their children. I’d be in favor of administrators monitoring every single work e-mail, but not parents. What if a teacher shares her concern with another teacher that, say, Johnny hates his new stepfather? (Or that he has a mom like Jackie, above — I surely wouldn’t want *her* to be allowed to see any e-mails about her kids!) What if parents are divorcing and trolling for information to use against one another? What if a teacher tells another about the kid who wet his pants in class?
Carolyn, above, also has a point. Doctors informally share information about patients with one another. She thinks teachers should be entitled to do the same, but I’m not so sure doctors should be allowed to do this either. It reminds me of the *Seinfeld* episode in which Elaine was “blacklisted” among doctors as a “difficult patient” because of this kind of communication, and couldn’t find a doctor who would believe anything she said.
There’s a huge privacy issue. Parents can have ulterior motives, and they can be wrongly influenced by a teachers’ informal assessments, just as other teachers can. Administrators should be checking this communication and, if it includes anything about individual students, they should put a stop to it. I don’t know if there’s any way to keep people from using their private e-mail accounts to send messages about their students, but they should be advised against it, especially if the content could be considered “defamatory” in any way. Teachers should go home and tell their spouses or other outside friends, with a vow of silence, if they have to vent to somebody.
May 11th, 2010 at 6:08 am
[...] CaldwellCountyPublicRecords.org Caldwell-County-Public-Records.org Related weblogs Parents want teacher e-mail? here's what the court says … Volusia county public records for march 27, 2010 « finance … Jackson county public notices [...]
May 11th, 2010 at 3:47 pm
What if a teacher was asked to rank students for an award? While the parents may (or may not) have the right to know that their child was nominated for the award, they certainly don’t have the right to know who else’s children were nominated for that same award.
IF parents are allowed to see such emails (which I don’t believe they should be), one would hope that any reference to children other than their own is removed/obscured before that happens.
May 11th, 2010 at 7:58 pm
The way I read that is that the student’s records (anything that would be in the student’s permanent file) are what is available. I wouldn’t think that correspondence between a teacher and administrator or counselor and teacher that were not in the student file would be relevant. We aren’t dealing with public information here to anyone but that student so correspondence about the student wouldn’t be part of that unless it was part of her permanent file.
May 18th, 2010 at 10:14 pm
It seems that this ruling could affect passing on information about a potentially violent student. There is always concern after deadly incidents that critical warning signs were not shared. Who will share them now?
May 18th, 2010 at 10:35 pm
I guess this is a secondary school case. I teach at a college and the Buckley Amendment makes it illegal for a teacher or school to share any information about a students performance (including grades, attendance record, etc.) without the student’s permission. But these are students over age 18.
May 19th, 2010 at 3:07 pm
Let’s not forget something here. Everyone employed by a school district is there for only one purpose, instruction of the students. If they discuss, email, write about anything that has to do with a student, it impacts the student on a personal level. Otherwise, why have a discussion about that student. With that in mind, I believe the parent has a right to ALL of the information. If it doesn’t relate to the student/teacher/district relationship, it shouldn’t be discussed by district employees to begin with. If it does, the parents have a right to it. District privacy rights? Please! I’ve seen way to much wheeling and dealing by district personnel as it pertains to individual students rights and education to know that the only thing district privacy rights protect is the status quo, not the students. If it has to do with a parents child, it should all be transparent, or don’t bring the student into the conversation.
May 19th, 2010 at 6:50 pm
Just throw emails away. Say you never saw it. Gosh, doesn’t anyone know the phrase,
“Pretend that nothing has happened, even if something has happened”. Learn how to play the game.
May 20th, 2010 at 2:27 pm
It looks to me that the student in question is a minor . In a four year college , this will be absolutely a no no issue .
May 20th, 2010 at 3:25 pm
Great Amy! “Just throw emails away. Say you never saw it. Gosh, doesn’t anyone know the phrase,
“Pretend that nothing has happened, even if something has happened”. Learn how to play the game.”
Assuming you are ignorant of the way schools email systems work, I imagine that with this attitude you are the person who worries about how to “play the game”. You have no right!
The law requires that emails be kept available for just this purpose. As to your comment about throwing them away, they remain on the districts servers…the one you logged into to access your email…the one that even shows whether you opened it or not. This isn’t your home Hotmail account. By the way, if you recieve or send an email, there’s a digital ‘packet’ of the contents available, all it takes is a court order. Oh yeah, I guess that’s why her parents are using their courts legal rights to access.
May 29th, 2010 at 8:27 pm
A week ago I might have felt differently but after what I’ve been through this week just trying to get access to my son’s basic records and his teachers lesson plans I say emails should be made available. I asked 3 of my son’s teachers to let me see their lesson plans and to review his work with comments and critiquing to support his grades and it has become such an issue that the local school Board has gotten involved. I don’t have a text book as he is in a Center for the Arts that all you have are lesson plans, rubrics, the Sunshine State Standards and the teacher’s opinion. I have been so stonewalled that the principal email me Friday that she has instructed her staff and his teachers not to respond to my emails or accept my calls. I kid you not! Then I’m out shopping Friday and I get a call from “downtown” asking me why I want to see these records. Lord I’m just trying to decide which school to send him to next year..they know this. Downtown will get back to me on Tuesday. When did what your child is being taught become privileged information? He’s only 14 for goodness sake. I might need the name of Mr. Sholar’s attorney. Oh wait I need one in Florida. Anybody game????