Day: July 20, 2016

Student Data Privacy Presentation To Delaware P-20 Council

Student Data Privacy

The Delaware P-20 Council received a presentation on student data privacy at their July 11th meeting.  You may be asking, what in the world is the P-20 Council?  Just another education council that helps to determine education policy and further cloud the issues.

The Delaware P-20 Council was established in 2003 by Governor Ruth Ann Minner’s Executive Order 47 and placed in statute in 2005. The Council is an inclusive organization designed to align Delaware’s education efforts across all grade levels. Its main goal is to establish a logical progression of learning from early childhood to post-secondary education while reducing the need for remediation. With cooperation from state leaders, higher education, school administrators, the business community, and parents, the P-20 Council will be able to open more doors for Delaware’s children and prepare them to become self-sufficient, contributing members of society who will continue to learn throughout their lives.

At this meeting, the council viewed a presentation on Student Data Privacy.  One was from Christian Wright with the Delaware Attorney General’s office and the other was from Amelia Vance with the National Association of State Boards of Education.  There are some very interesting tidbits in Vance’s presentation…

National Association of State Boards of Education Student Data Privacy Presentation

Delaware Student Data Privacy Laws

Regulation 616 Rears Its Ugly Head Again And Gets Blasted By Delaware ACLU

Regulation 616

The approach the Department is taking shortchanges our most vulnerable children and puts Delaware’s future at risk.

PrincipalsOffice

At the end of last year, the Delaware Department of Education proposed amendments to Regulation 616 concerning due process procedures for alternative placement meetings and expulsion hearings.  In a nutshell, this regulation would make it easier to strip away the rights of students and parents in regards to school discipline.  This prompted a wave of negative comments from many concerned organizations and citizens in Delaware.  It started with the Smyrna School District Assistant Superintendent and went from there.  The State Board of Education tabled the changes at their December, 2016 board meeting.  Now Reg. 616 is back.  It was published in the June Registrar of Regulations.

As I wrote last year when this god awful and horrible regulation was introduced, this bill appears to be tailor made for charter schools.  To kick out the unwanted.  Why does the Delaware DOE and State Board of Education even consider this kind of nonsense?  Especially since there were laws passed dealing with this exact sort of thing.  Furthermore, Senate Bill 239, if passed, would have been the opposite of this bill.  I’m hearing this bill will come back roaring in the 149th General Assembly.  It was a question of timing for why it didn’t pass this spring.

Disproportionality is a big word these days and it needs to be.  We are seeing the results of what can happen when the pendulum swings too far in one direction.  The Delaware DOE and the State Board are taking a huge step backwards in a time when they should be getting out of this mindset.  If our charter schools want to completely change the direction of Delaware schools while everyone else is saying no, perhaps the time has come for them to change.  This isn’t Little House on the Prairie anymore.  They need to stop relying on funding from the state and the citizens who actually produce the funding for them to run as quasi-corporations and become what they should have been in the first place: private schools charging tuition.  Let’s see how successful they are then when they aren’t using their “autonomy” when it suits them best and then ditching that concept when things aren’t equal.

REGULATION 616

ACLU COMMENTS ON REGULATION 616

ATTORNEY GENERAL’S COMMENTS ON REGULATION 616

DSCYF COMMENTS ON REGULATION 616

GACEC COMMENTS ON REGULATION 616

SCPD COMMENTS ON REGULATION 616