cw, don’t pick on me for your question and bcos you don’t like the correct answer. You own the picture, not your kid. That is established law (copyright, I believe). It is no different than a photographer who takes salacious pix of young actresses and then publishes those pix when the women become famous. Absent a contract to the contrary, the photographer owns the pictures, even if the budding actress paid the photographer to take those pix.
^ Would you think they just print a picture without a name? And FERPA has nothing to do with intecllectual property and I never asked about IP. I just presented a real situation related to the issue in discussion (directory publication). Even when my question is not clear you don’t have to be rude.
Wouldn’t this fall under the blanket consent to or opt out of publicity that schools ask parents to sign at the beginning of each school year? That covers pretty much anything school-related. Perhaps some schools don’t do that, but ours do so I would think post-HS plans would be covered. In our case, it would be the HS paper, not the local paper, that publishes this. Does that make it less of a concern?
Re the question from mom2and: Yes, it is less of a concern if the parents have signed a blanket consent to publicity. I understand why the schools do it this way, but I think it would be better if consent were given on a case-by-case basis for publicity out of the ordinary–e.g., one would not have to consent to publicity about the student’s role on the soccer team for each game or for the tournament, but for something that could not have been expected at the beginning of the school year, it might be good to have separate consent forms.
At a school with a graduating class of over 400, separate forms is time consuming and costly. I think it is on the parents to raise the concern with the school once they have signed the consent form OR to note on their form that they want to be asked each time.
I don’t know about other school districts but my school district is really aware of legal issues and afraid of being sued. Ten or twelve years ago the district was sued for sexual harassment and lost several million dollars. Since then they ask parents to sign a lot of papers at the beginning of each school year.
Seems like the only way for the school to know what the student’s plans are would be if the student told his/her counselor, or (later) requested a final transcript to be sent to a college or some such. In that case, the counselor can confirm at that time whether the student wants his/her plans made public.
At my children’s school, they sat in a rough order of class rank at graduation: Class officers, top 20, summa, magna, cum laude (in rough alphabetical order), and then the remainder of the class. I was disappointed that the program didn’t list their colleges or post hs plans (many were headed to the military, and they stood at graduation for recognition), or indicate if they’d received a scholarship. Everyone knew about where the gpas were for any graduate.
The school had an honors award night, but it was so very screwed up that no one left thinking they’d learn anything or that the kids had been honored. There were awards from some schools but not others. A boy with the same award as my daughter was announced, but she wasn’t even invited (I was there for my other daughter). His award was read as $25k, but that was just for one year and many of the awards were announced for all 4 years. My daughter’s talent award was announced, but not her merit award. All the little local awards were announced like $500 from the Rotary or American Legion, but they didn’t announce any of the awards from UF or USF. They announced all the NHS awards, the booster club athletic awards, but no other athletic awards or awards from other school clubs. It was a mess.
Most kids are going to graduate and those kids would move on to do something after graduation, whether it is going to college or not, so what’s so unexpected about it. Did it hit some parents in April, “Oh, my goodness my kid is graduating and he/she is going off to college.” What’s unexpected is WHERE. Unless you feel where your kid is going off to school is an indication of how smart he/she is and how wealthy (or not) your family is, then where your kid is going off to college is no more than “Susie is playing in orchestra.” or “Johnny is playing soccer.”
I would say most kids in my Ds’ classes were pretty happy with where they were going to college by the time May came around, and they were proud to share their information with their family and friends. I knew most of those kids since they were in K, so it was good for me to know where they would be after graduation.
The college is telling you that your student is on track for graduation, so wouldn’t that be violating FERPA if the student hadn’t signed a release of info to you the parent? Yes, I know it’s ridiculous, but remember that schools can and do hide things from parents under the guise of FERPA.
My kid’s good friend was trying to get away from their abusive father, so every year they opted out of any school publications. Their family home address and phone numbers were never listed in the school directory.
With a class that big (ours is even bigger!) it doesn’t seem practical to publish that information on an individual basis!
oldfort, I think that your children went to a private school? I see that as different. Also, I think that money for college is no issue for your family, based on your posts.
Yes, the outcome of admissions might be unexpected for a family–the existence of CC is evidence enough for that.
Our local newspapers sometimes list a student as going to “Big State U or Harvard.” There are a few ways that listing might occur. Perhaps the student was wait listed at Harvard and is hoping to be one of the lucky few drawn from the wait list. Perhaps the student is considering a gap year, and re-applying to Harvard if not accepted from the wait list. Perhaps the student’s family is in an upper-middle income bracket, where they are expected to come up with a very high proportion of the cost of attendance at Harvard, and they are not sure how they are going to do that. In any case, I think it’s too much information for people who didn’t already know the student’s plans.
Oh please. My graduating class was ~1600 students and they still somehow managed to get permission for things.
Laziness isn’t an excuse for ignoring privacy concerns.