School directors dispute state requirement

ROCKPORT – School directors are reconsidering their decision in June to turn over to the state Department of Education names of students disciplined for prohibited behavior.

According to federal law, prohibited behavior includes drug or weapon offenses or serious bodily injuries inflicted by one student on another.

School directors said earlier this week they are afraid the names will go on a list that will brand students forever and have consequences on their applications for college and employment.

The state collects the information so it can track students who move from one district or school to another, according to a state education department spokesman.

Board Chairman John Lewis of Camden asked during Wednesday night’s board meeting whether the district at least could place the names in escrow and not send them to the state, pending any action against the state on the issue.

The Five Town Community School District in June was one of a few districts in the state to object to Maine’s requirement to provide names of individual students involved in such behavior, said Superintendent Patricia Hopkins at the CSD board meeting Wednesday.

“We have to file this information twice a year,” Hopkins said in an interview Thursday. “We have to file in January and in June.”

She said that last June while informing the board and the parents about the requirement, she found that school board directors raised objections to the district’s release of student information.

“They didn’t want us to do it, and they actually voted not to permit us to do it and release that information,” she said of the board.

The superintendent subsequently went back to the CSD board to ask members to reconsider their motion because of the potential of losing federal subsidies for refusing to comply.

The board then allowed the school to release the information and said it would return to the issue later to try to have the requirement changed and not be forced to release student information.

“The federal government is not asking for the information [about individual students],” she said. “So they’re in disagreement with the state for requiring us to submit it that way.”

The U.S. Department of Education is interested in the statistics, while the state Department of Education wants individual names, she said.

“On behalf of the board, I am going to contact the department and find out where they stand, whether they intend to still require us to submit the names, and if so, the board is interested in advocating to have this requirement changed,” she said.

“I have to pursue to see what options exist, and then report back to the board next month,” she said.

David Connerty-Marin, director of communications for the Maine Department of Education, said the law has not changed since June.

“We need to disaggregate the information into a report that breaks the data down by age, gender and ethnicity and the like,” he said.

Five Town CSD is the only district opposed to sending the data, he said. “The other districts welcome the information, for otherwise they would have to get all the data on their own,” he said.

Federal requirements for the information fill seven pages of instructions and 15 pages of tables, he said.

Connerty-Marin also said the Department of Education does not share the information with anyone, including colleges, law enforcement agencies or prospective employers.

“We’re prohibited by law from releasing this data,” he said.

It would be difficult for individual school systems to track students who move from one district or school to another without the state’s help, Connerty-Marin said.

gchappell@bangordailynews.net

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