Students Opt Out

Auburn High School has 617 students, and was the only school surveyed that had zero students recorded as opting out.

While Worcester’s Deputy Superintendent Stephen Mills reported a “dramatic increase in families choosing to opt –out” and neighboring Leicester High School’s Class of 2006 has 73% of seniors choosing to opt-out neighboring Auburn H.S. reports that no students have opted out. Something seriously wrong must be happening at Auburn H.S.

The extent of Auburn H.S.’s notification to parents was two sentences on page five of the Fall 2005 Guidance Newsletter sent to each family in the fall. The announcement fails to meet NCLB guidelines notifying students that they can choose to opt out, and also fails to give a required deadline.

Historically, Auburn H.S. has had an overly cozy relationship with military recruiters. In the May, 2005 Army National Guard Newsletter Worcester Army Recruiter Sgt. John Bonneville’s recruitment efforts are highlighted, particularly his being allowed to bring the entire Auburn H.S. hockey team to see the Ice Cats, and then he had the “added bonus” of organizing “a two-hour hockey game played between the Auburn High School team and the infamous 2003 Armed Forces Champion “Red Legs” Massachusetts Army National Guard team.” Sgt. Bonneville’s post-recruitment reflection?, “This event helped me develop a rapport with some influential students in one of my schools,” said Bonneville.” With the revolving door military recruiters find at Auburn H.S. it is little surprise NCLB opt-out notification requirements are side-stepped.

Students at Auburn H.S. or parents that feel they were not properly informed by the school that private student information would be released to military recruiters have two options. Parents and students can contact the school and ask that a better notification be immediately put in place and/or they may file a complaint under the Family Rights and Educational Privacy Act (FERPA) expressing the failure to Auburn H.S. to notify them the release to the military of private student data. Letters of complaint should be sent to; Family Policy Compliance Office, U.S. Department of Education, 600 Independence Avenue, SW Washington, D.C. 20202-4605

Auburn High School Opt Out 2006 (pdf)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 7th, 2006 at 11:41 pm and is filed under Massachusetts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.