At the legislative hearing on March 12th for HB 5078, AN ACT IMPOSING A MORATORIUM ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS, my testimony was strictly about the privacy issue. I've written here several times about this problem, and it remains my biggest concern with all the changes to education that Common Core came with.
After my testimony, Senator Dante Bartolomeo approached me and asked for my personal contact information; she expressed her own concern with the changes to FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) and wanted to speak to me further. I am a constituent of the Senator.
Today I spoke to Bartolomeo by phone.
Bartolomeo said that she questioned the SDE about the issue, and they referred her to UCONN for clarification. Unfortunately, she has not been able to substantiate my research regarding how CT law does not aid in protecting our children's privacy, after the federal FERPA law has been changed to no longer do so. I had provided Bartolomeo with a copy of a letter I had written to the Curriculum Coordinator in Cheshire regarding my concerns. I had received a response from the Curriculum Coordinator saying that the district lawyer did not refute any of what I had written, and Bartolomeo had hoped for access to that lawyer to substantiate my letter. However, I did not have direct contact with her and do not know her name.
So without the aid of a lawyer to confirm my research, we unfortunately are looking at a longer timeline. Bartolomeo said she is going to put in a request with the Connecticut Office of Legislator Research (OLR) for them to provide her with a full report on what the changes in FERPA mean to Connecticut children. Unfortunately, however, because there are only five weeks left in this legislative session, she says we will not get that report until likely sometime in June. Which means that we will have to see her re-elected for her to raise any bills next year. So even though we now have someone's attention on this very important matter, we have a long road ahead of us in fixing it.
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