Non-Profit Group To Receive California Student Data

A federal district court granted the request of the California Parents Association to receive all of the personal information and school records of public school students in California.

NBC 7 San Diego reports:

The nonprofit said it needs the information to see if California schools are violating the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and other related laws. The database it will have access to includes all information on children, kindergarten through high school, who are attending or have attended a California school at any time since Jan. 1, 2008.

The database contain students’ names, social security numbers, home addresses, course information, behavior and discipline information, progress reports, mental health and medical information, along with suspensions, expulsions and more…

….Students and parents can opt-out of the list by following detailed instructions from the district court. However there appears to be very little being done on the state or local level to inform parents of the disclosure.

I understand the need to be a watchdog on these issues, but this is a gross violation of privacy for students. There are all sorts of risks with allowing a data dump like this. I’m also frustrated that the state is collecting this much data on students as well. The opt-out form can be found here.