Student confidentiality policies should dictate every part of our day. The basic premise for protecting student information has not changed. It applies whether we're in a public place conversing with colleagues, it applies to what we would publish in writing in a newspaper or journal, and it applies to web-based resources.
Here is a link to the Draft of the Acceptable Use Policy that was presented to the Board on July 25, 2011. Since it was posted it was brought to Teacher Council for feedback. It is currently being revised by the district's legal council and will go before the board again on November 14.
Please refer to page 6 (sorry the pages are not numbered) "4. An online presence...."
Although the draft indicates that students should not be identified in a public online presence more specifically than first and last initial it is being changed to reflect the current form given at registration (see below for exact language)
One suggestion is to ask your building scheduler or secretary to run an ad hoc report of which students do not have permission to have student work published on the District's Internet-based web sites. They need to look for Withhold Photo-Work Published in Infinite Campus. They should also run a report of Data Directory information withheld to determine which students have selected Withhold Name and Withhold Student Photo, which prevents MMSD and outside media coverage of awards, events, activities or issues of public interest involving your student. Media coverage may involve, but is not necessarily limited to, voice recordings, still photographs, videotaping, information/images posted on the World Wide Web (Internet), or other public disclosure of student directory data such as a student's name, image and age.
