Student Privacy Spotlighted in Va.

From the Washington Post. Imagine this excerpt being said in a Morrisville context: "This was all a bold statement by the city and schools that 'we can do what we want to do, when we want to do it, and you have to deal with it,' " Ramon Rodriguez, a plaintiff in the suit said about the release of the information. "All over the fact that my name is Hispanic. That was it."

This is what privacy laws are meant to protect against.

Student Privacy Spotlighted in Va.
Manassas School Board, City Pay in Discrimination Suit; Policies Tightened

School officials in the City of Manassas admitted this week that they skirted federal privacy laws when they divulged personal information about a number of Hispanic students to city inspectors investigating anonymous complaints about overcrowded housing.

The 2005 disclosures -- school officials were looking for Hispanic students with different last names living at the same address -- led to late-night and often intrusive inspections. City zoning officials measured bedroom space, counted windows and electrical outlets, and quizzed occupants about their relationships to one another, according to a lawsuit filed by some of the victims.

More than 90 percent of the inspections were of Hispanic homes. Most of the inspections found no violations, City Manager Larry Hughes said.

This week, city and School Board officials agreed to settle a lawsuit brought by 11 Hispanic residents charging officials with targeting and discriminating against Hispanics. Together, the city and school system will pay $775,000 to cover plaintiff damages and attorneys' fees.

School officials apologized for the disclosure of confidential information. They said they have tightened internal policies for safeguarding private information and have begun to better educate staff members about federal privacy laws. "We've taken steps to make sure that something like this will never happen again," Superintendent Gail Pope said. "And in the future, if there's ever a question, we'll err on the side of being conservative and not release information."
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The students' personal information was released with the approval of the School Board's attorney, according to the lawyer and board members. The lawyer declined to comment.

The 30-year-old law that protects students' educational information such as grades, special education status and classes allows the disclosure of such information as a student's name, phone number and address to a third party when a student has given prior consent or is aware that the system considers it public information.

The School Board maintains that "very few" students' information was turned over to city officials. The lawsuit included three plaintiffs suing the School Board over released private data. However, attorneys for the plaintiffs, the Washington Lawyers Committee, said they have evidence through Freedom of Information Act requests of many more cases. "But many people, for whatever reason, were too afraid to be part of the lawsuit," attorney Laura Varela said.

Although city officials admitted no wrongdoing, as part of the settlement they have created a new position for a bilingual housing advocate to handle discrimination complaints. An anonymous hotline to report overcrowding has been shut down. And the city will no longer send inspectors out solely on the basis of an anonymous call. Now, a caller must be an "identifiable and reliable witness" to overcrowding. And inspectors must have "credible and reliable" information to suspect a violation before knocking on anyone's door.

The hotline received thousands of complaints about overcrowding over the course of a few years, city officials said. Nearly all the complaints were about newly arrived Hispanic families, records show.

As a result of the settlement, the Department of Justice and the Department of Housing and Urban Development have agreed to drop investigations into the city's actions.

The employee who released the information was fired in 2006.

On Dec. 5, 2005, the City Council adopted a law that allowed families to live in one house only if they were "related to the second degree of consanguinity," meaning children or grandparents. Some plaintiffs were forced to evict nieces and nephews to comply with the law. After national public outcry, the law was suspended Dec. 27. The move was one of a number of efforts by city and county leaders to crack down on overcrowding and illegal immigrants in the area.
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"This was all a bold statement by the city and schools that 'we can do what we want to do, when we want to do it, and you have to deal with it,' " Ramon Rodriguez, a plaintiff in the suit said about the release of the information. "All over the fact that my name is Hispanic. That was it."

Rodriguez was born in Manassas and attended Manassas public schools. And until recently, he worked for the city's school system as a community liaison, reporting directly to the superintendent. His mother is African American, and his father is Puerto Rican.

In fall 2005, he had just sold his townhouse, and the home he was building in Fauquier County was not finished. So he and his school-age daughter moved into the basement apartment of Paul and Debra Odems, relatives on his mother's side. That's when his problems began.

According to the lawsuit, a school employee who directed the system's triennial census began demanding proof of residency not only from him but also from the Odemses. Although they complied, they said, the employee demanded more information, including the Odemses' deed to their house, the suit said. After several "harassing" phone calls, they said the employee threatened to begin charging Rodriguez out-of-city tuition for his daughter.
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Not long after that, one November evening, Paul Odems was in front of his house, grilling steaks and hamburgers for dinner, when a city inspector showed up, saying he had a right to come in and inspect the house. He said the city had received a complaint that the house was overcrowded. Odems said that, absent a warrant, they did not have the right to enter. "But I had nothing to hide," he said, "so I let them in."

Inspectors questioned the Odemses about why they lived in the house with their four grandchildren. The children's mother is dead. And they checked whether Rodriguez did indeed live in the basement apartment.

What Rodriguez did not know was that the school employee had gone into his daughter's private file and forwarded personal information about him, his employment, address, the family's living arrangement and the Odemses' deed to city inspectors.

Likewise, the lawsuit said, the employee sent zoning inspectors information collected on Ana Taylor, a legal resident who has lived in the United States since she left El Salvador in 1984. Taylor lived in a townhouse she owned with her three children, her niece and her niece's five children. When the employee discovered children with different last names at the same address, that information was forwarded, along with details of who owned the home and all the people who lived there, to city inspectors. Inspectors came to Taylor's home late one night in December 2005 and inspected it when the only person present was her 15-year-old daughter. They gave Taylor 30 days to evict her niece or be found in violation of the city's overcrowding ordinance.

Taylor did so in December 2005, turning her niece's family into the street just days before Christmas. On Dec. 25, Taylor's extended family gathered for Christmas dinner. Distraught after bouncing from relative to relative for weeks, her niece begged Taylor to let her stay at her home for just one night.

"I had to say no. I was afraid they would come back," Taylor said in Spanish. "That was the most difficult moment. Your family is your family. But I had to say no."

Rodriguez, who now lives in Fauquier County, has resigned from his position with the school system. Taylor, without the income from her niece's family, lost her home and now lives in an apartment.

Manassas School Board Chairman Arthur Bushnell said the system's tighter privacy policy is important for restoring confidence. Much of the information the employee released came from the triennial census, which is designed to help the school system track the number of school-age children for planning purposes. The census materials include a promise that the information will be kept strictly confidential. "If people don't trust that that info was only going to be used for educational planning purposes only, we were concerned people wouldn't give us that information," he said.

Although Bushnell said he did not "condone" the disclosures of personal information, he said they might have fallen into a gray area under federal privacy law.

But Barmak Nassirian, a federal privacy law expert with the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers in Washington, said the employee's release of lease or homeownership information, employment status and living arrangements clearly crossed a line.

"That's a clear violation of federal privacy laws," he said. "I find it more than a little ironic that law enforcement officials, purportedly trying to catch lawbreakers, broke the law themselves. That is shocking to me."