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- Thomas Jefferson
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night. -
Steve Martin
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when it fails to work as advertised, it's the customer that gets labeled as
defective. - Kevin
Killion
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Courage is the most important of all
the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other
virtues consistently. You can't be consistently kind or fair or
humane or generous, not without courage, because if you don't have
it, sooner or later you will stop and say, "The threat is too much.
The difficulty is ...too high. The challenge is too great. ~ Maya
Angelou
KeepEanesInformed will post the 2008 check
register soon.
What's the hold-up?
March 2009 - Eanes ISD fails to remove confidential student
information from check register before releasing
to public.
Confidentiality
problems in Eanes ISD continue.
March 27, 2009
Bernadette,
Thank you for providing a correctly redacted
check register for September 2008. As I
explained, I did not post the information on
KeepEanesInformed because it was evident
that the district had not correctly redacted
the public information, and also evident
that the district redacted information that
should have been produced.
As you know, the district alleges that, in
order to produce a check register for a
single month, the district must spend
4-5 hours (or more) redacting information.
Surely, with the district technology
purchased by our tax dollars, the district
can devise a method to streamline this
process and enhance confidentiality
protection.
I would like to recommend a solution: I
suggest that the district tag each check
register entry that includes confidential
student information (for example, add the
word FERPA to the description when
confidential information is included) so
that the "screening process" when producing
check registers can be efficient and
accurate.
Dianna
A brief history
of the confidentiality problem in Eanes ISD:
Back in 2003, just one
month after KeepEanesInformed was created, Eanes
ISD published and distributed my child's
confidential education records including
medical records ... in a board meeting.
When I began obtaining and publishing the
district's public information, the
district began to disclose, without my
permission, my child's private information.
As I became educated about
the privacy rights of children who attend public
school, I realized that the problem of
disclosure in Eanes ISD was serious and
pervasive. From conversations about
sensitive and legally protected information
between Eanes ISD employees and the public
(parents and others) to
illegal disclosure of paper documents to the
"inadvertent misplacement" of highly
confidential audiotapes, the problem was
evident.
I notified Eanes ISD
leadership about
the specifics and magnitude of the problem and I
spent a great deal of time providing evidence of the problem
to Nola Wellman in an attempt to help her understand confidentiality requirements.
She responded by retaining private attorneys to
battle against the privacy rights of children
and the problems continued.
Just this year, I've heard
from district parents who are very concerned
that Eanes ISD is not training volunteers about
the confidentiality requirements and as a
result, the private information of district
children is fodder for gossip. I explained
that, although the district did agree in 2004 to
require confidentiality training to staff and
volunteers, I am not sure that the training is
still required or provided.
Eanes ISD
"appalled at the seriousness of the problem" and
an assurance to "turn this district around":
-----Original Message-----
From: Cynthia Martin [mailto:cmartin@eanes.k12.tx.us]
Sent: July 13, 2004
To: Dianna
Pharr
Dianna,
I was unable to return your
call yesterday and will be out of the office all
day today. I will call you in the morning on
Wednesday as I will have some time to talk then.
I want you to know that
Nola and I talked about your information
regarding the confidential student info you
received and we are both appauled [sic] at the
seriousness of this problem. We had already
begun a restructuring of our training and
accountability processes but this just
reinforces our efforts. Thank you for your
assurance to Nola that you will give us the
benefit of the doubt and allow us the time we
need to turn this district around. It will
take retraining every employee in the district,
new monitoring processes and probably a few
sanctions before we see improvement but Nola and
I are committed to improving this area of
compliance. We will start the training as soon
as the staff return in August.
Cindy Martin
Director of Special
Education
(512) 732-9021
>>> "Dianna Pharr" 06/29/04 12:45 PM >>>
Dear Cindy,
I wrote you and Nola
Wellman on Monday, June 21 regarding the
confidential documents that I hold.
