Nov. 22, 2024

After our letter and more than 3,000 parent emails were sent to the new DOE Chancellor and members of the Panel for Educational Policy, she was alerted to the fact that their privacy regulations were not acceptable to parents and other members of the community.  Chancellor Ramos reached out, and last week we had a good meeting with her,  along with parent leaders and advocates, as well as many top DOE officials and legal staff on this issue.

The Chancellor was great and quickly agreed to our suggestion to create a working group that would collaborate to revise the regulations to so that students’ safety and privacy are not put at unacceptable risk by allowing the unrestricted release of their sensitive data.  At this point, the PEP vote on the regs is indefinitely postponed. Yesterday’s Politico Playbook briefly reported on this development.

Thanks so much for the letters of support sent in recent days from  UFT President Michael Mulgrew, Council Members Krishnan, Joseph, and Aviles, and the Center on Race and Digital Justice, urging the DOE to revise the regulations and restrict the disclosure of personal data to better ensure student privacy and safety, including to prevent the harassment and deportation of migrant children.  Those letters are below.