Post by richardkelsey on May 14, 2008 9:15:31 GMT -5
newstranscript.gmnews.com/news/2008/0514/letters/029.html
Freehold superintendent responds to editor's column
This is in response to the May 7 column "Request for Information Not Always a Simple Task" by News Transcript Managing Editor Mark Rosman.
Mr. Rosman says that he was unable to inform readers what happened to students involved in an altercation at the Freehold Intermediate School last month because I did not want to discuss the issue. In fact, Mr. Rosman never contacted me about the incident.
As noted in the column, school officials, at least those in New Jersey, cannot disclose the names of students involved in disciplinary matters. Our laws prohibit that and they require that student disciplinary hearings be held in private. See, for example, N.J.S.A. 18A:37-1 to -19.
The information that I could legally disclose at the time, I did in a letter to parents. Had anyone from the News Transcript asked me for a copy of the letter, which no one did, I would have provided it.
My letter answers some of the questions Mr. Rosman lists in his column. Some of the other questions could not have been answered, even had they been posed to me, because disciplinary hearings had not taken place when the reporter contacted me.
Had those hearings been held, I could not have legally disclosed a particular outcome, but I could, as I did in my letter to parents, describe the disciplinary process generally.
If Mr. Rosman really was interested in knowing the potential consequences facing the students, he could have asked me or gone to the district's Web site.
The school's student handbook, posted there, states that a student who possesses or uses a weapon, including a pocket knife, faces a 10-day suspension, police notification, parental conference and an expulsion referral.
Mr. Rosman cites a Michigan incident where, he says, school officials reported the discipline taken against certain students. He then asks why all school administrators cannot provide the same level of cooperation.
I do not know what Michigan law provides with regard to student privacy. I do know, by experience, that New Jersey school administrators and boards of education cooperate with the press, but within the law's confines.
If Mr. Rosman objects to the confidentiality requirements of those laws, he is free to take that up with our lawmakers. Until then, all students, including ours, are entitled to confidentiality in the treatment of school disciplinary matters.
Elizabeth J. O'Connell
Superintendent of Schools
Freehold Borough
Freehold superintendent responds to editor's column
This is in response to the May 7 column "Request for Information Not Always a Simple Task" by News Transcript Managing Editor Mark Rosman.
Mr. Rosman says that he was unable to inform readers what happened to students involved in an altercation at the Freehold Intermediate School last month because I did not want to discuss the issue. In fact, Mr. Rosman never contacted me about the incident.
As noted in the column, school officials, at least those in New Jersey, cannot disclose the names of students involved in disciplinary matters. Our laws prohibit that and they require that student disciplinary hearings be held in private. See, for example, N.J.S.A. 18A:37-1 to -19.
The information that I could legally disclose at the time, I did in a letter to parents. Had anyone from the News Transcript asked me for a copy of the letter, which no one did, I would have provided it.
My letter answers some of the questions Mr. Rosman lists in his column. Some of the other questions could not have been answered, even had they been posed to me, because disciplinary hearings had not taken place when the reporter contacted me.
Had those hearings been held, I could not have legally disclosed a particular outcome, but I could, as I did in my letter to parents, describe the disciplinary process generally.
If Mr. Rosman really was interested in knowing the potential consequences facing the students, he could have asked me or gone to the district's Web site.
The school's student handbook, posted there, states that a student who possesses or uses a weapon, including a pocket knife, faces a 10-day suspension, police notification, parental conference and an expulsion referral.
Mr. Rosman cites a Michigan incident where, he says, school officials reported the discipline taken against certain students. He then asks why all school administrators cannot provide the same level of cooperation.
I do not know what Michigan law provides with regard to student privacy. I do know, by experience, that New Jersey school administrators and boards of education cooperate with the press, but within the law's confines.
If Mr. Rosman objects to the confidentiality requirements of those laws, he is free to take that up with our lawmakers. Until then, all students, including ours, are entitled to confidentiality in the treatment of school disciplinary matters.
Elizabeth J. O'Connell
Superintendent of Schools
Freehold Borough