BIDDEFORD — Raising concerns about privacy and identity theft, the Biddeford School Committee has joined several other school boards around the state in asking the Maine State Legislature to rescind a law that requires school districts to ask parents for their children’s Social Security numbers.
On Tuesday, the School Committee passed a resolution asking the legislature to rescind Public Law Chapter 448, entitled “An Act to Improve the Ability of the Department of Education to Conduct Longitudinal Data Studies.”
The act requires school districts, for the first time this year, to ask parent’s for the children’s Social Security numbers in order to track students beyond their academic career and follow them through their future employment.
By having these Social Security numbers, the Department of Education will link with the Department of Labor and follow how a student progresses from school to the work world.
By having this information, it can be used to inform educational programming, said DOE spokesman David Connerty-Marin. By tracking students beyond graduation through college and into the workforce, the department can determine “are we giving them the skills they need to make a living wage?” he said.
Most states are moving in this direction, said Connerty-Marin. He said the DOE received a $7 million grant to help with this process.
The resolution passed on Tuesday also requests that parent’s protect their child’s privacy and refuse to provide the school with their child’s Social Security number.
While the School Department is required to ask parent’s to provide this information, or risk the loss of government funding for education to the district, parents can decline to comply and simply not supply the requested information.
In order to comply with the law and nor risk the loss of government aid to education, the district will send a letter home with students at the beginning of the school year asking for students’ Social Security numbers. However, it will also inform parents that they aren’t required to provide these numbers.
Mayor Joanne Twomey, who also chairs the School Committee, said she is vehemently opposed to the law and said parents should not comply with it.
“I feel this is so wrong,” she said. “Parents have a choice. I’m urging them not to do it.”
No database is secure from computer hackers, said Twomey. She noted the incident at Hannaford Bros. Co. in 2008 when millions of debit and credit card numbers were stolen by computer hackers.
The resolution also includes incidents of database breaches putting individual’s information at risk. It states that in 2006 the Veterans Administration had a computer file stolen containing 26.5 million Social Security numbers and that the Federal Trade Commission estimates that up to nine million Americans have their identities stolen each year.
Although no database is 100 percent secure, said Connerty-Marin, the DOE has a very secure system. Also, he said the DOE will not share student information with other organizations.
The Maine Civil Liberties Union has been working against the requirement to supply student Social Security numbers to the DOE since before the law was enacted.
The law, said Brianna Twofoot, the field director for the MCLU, is “subjecting a person to a long period of tracking. A second grade mishap shouldn’t follow a person through their career.”
The organization is currently protesting the lack of information provided to parents telling them that they can opt out, she said.
The MCLU has also been helping to circulate the resolution, similar to that past by the Biddeford School Committee, throughout the state.
Several school districts have already passed the resolution, said Twofoot, and others will be considering it in the near future.
— Staff Writer Dina Mendros can be contacted at 282-1535, Ext. 324 or dmendros@journaltribune.com.
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