Three swallows do not a summer make, but straws in the wind at the local level of public education indicate that some schools are starting to show respect for parental and pupil rights.
A few weeks ago, the Lyon County School Board in Nevada adopted a policy recognizing that “the rights of pupils shall be protected.” The new pupil protection policy states that all instructional materials, including teachers’ manuals, films and questionnaires, “shall be available for inspection by the parents or guardians of the children.”
The policy goes on to state that “the prior written consent of the parent” must be obtained before students respond to personal questions about such matters as political attitudes, psychological problems that are potentially embarrassing, sex behavior and attitudes, self-incriminating behavior, or critical appraisals of their family members.
The policy goes on to state that “the prior written consent of the parent” must be obtained before students respond to personal questions about such matters as political attitudes, psychological problems that are potentially embarrassing, sex behavior and attitudes, self-incriminating behavior, or critical appraisals of their family members.
This policy is modeled after the federal Pupil Protection Amendment, which was passed by Congress in 1978. This statute was never enforced until regulations were belatedly issued in 1984 after a direct order from President Reagan to then Secretary of Education Terrel Bell.
The federal law, of course, applies only to materials using federal funds. From time to time, state legislatures, school boards and even individual schools have attempted to adopt the same type of rule for their own jurisdictions.
The impetus for a recognition of parental and pupil privacy rights certainly has not come from the top. The National Education Association has fought parents rights every step of the way, and national organizations such as the National School Boards Association have tried to pretend that the controversy over classroom assaults on pupils’ values and privacy doesn’t exist.
The impetus for the Nevada action was the type of controversy which, unfortunately, has become all too common in communities across the country. Parents discovered that two privacy-invading surveys had been inflicted on schoolchildren.
The first, given in January 1987 to qualify for a federal school breakfast program, asked such questions as: “Have you ever wished you could die to escape problems?”; “Do you go to a sitter after school each day?”; “Have you ever though about killing yourself?”; “Do you usuallyfix your own dinner without help?”; “Do you have clean clothes to wear each day?”; and “Do you usually shower or bathe daily?”
The other survey was given in May 1988 to qualify for federal drug education funds. It had 50 multiple-choice questions on drug use, including frequency, first use, source, adults in student’s home using them, number of adults student knows who use drugs, and personal attitudes about rightness of use.
The final questions instructed children to respond affirmatively or negatively to such statements as: “I believe law enforcement and our communities to such statements as: “I believe law enforcement and our communities should tolerate (allow) drinking parties for student events such as graduations” and “I would attend a drug and alcohol free graduation party.”
The school board in Sequim, Washington passed a similar policy based on the federal Pupil Protection Amendment in April 1987. One of the citizen leaders in the ten-month effort to achieve this result said that the policy marks “the end of the use of psychological therapy in the classroom and a return to the instruction of the basics.”
In addition to incorporating into local regulations the language of the federal Pupil Protection Amendment, the Sequim policy instructs the teachers to stress the “fundamental principles of honesty, honor, industry, and economy, the minimum requisite for good health… and the principles of patriotism.”
The Montgomery County, Maryland school district (one of the largest in the country) passed a similar policy in November 1987. The three-page policy memorandum signed by the superintendent stated that “it is imperative that anyone having instructional responsibilities be alert to any activities which might be construed as intruding upon student or family privacy.”
Showing its sensitivity to the school’s responsibility of dealing with minor children, the memorandum pointed out that “even asking a student to fill out a questionnaire voluntarily may be seen as coercive.” The policy prohibits teachers from “invading the privacy of students and their families” by such tactics as “prying into past experiences, feelings, viewpoints, or home life which might create anxiety.”
Montgomery County teachers soon found that this policy prevented their requiring junior high school students to fill out a questionnaire that asked such questions as: “What is the real source of my anxiety about the future?”; “Why don’t I like to go to church?”; and “Why am I always an outsider, a loner?”
Public schools could greatly improve their public relations by adopting similar pupil privacy protection policies.
