Posted on 10/24/2003 8:45:31 AM PDT by The Other Harry
October 24, 2003
S.C. schools OK military recruiters
By DAVID SCHARFENBERG
Sentinel staff writer
With the federal government threatening to strip city schools of $3.6 million, the school board has agreed to provide military recruiters with easy access to the names, addresses and phone numbers of high school juniors and seniors.
The board voted 6-0 with one abstention Wednesday night to release student contact information unless parents explicitly "opt out" of the process.
The district’s old policy required parents to "opt in," asking that the information be released to recruiters. Last year, under "opt in," parents released information for only 50 of the district’s roughly 2,000 juniors and seniors.
In August, state schools chief Jack O’Connell wrote a letter to 24 districts, including Santa Cruz, warning that opt-in policies violate the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Districts could lose millions in federal funding, he wrote, if they failed to comply.
Wednesday, Santa Cruz became one of the last districts in the state to comply with the law. School board members said they were reluctant to sacrifice student privacy, but could not risk millions in federal funding.
"If we’re playing poker with the federal government, there’s no doubt that they called our bluff, and we have no more chips," said school board President Tim Willis.
Peace activists pushing the opt-in approach, or an opt-out policy with more teeth, said they were disappointed in the school board’s decision.
"We’re coming up on Dec. 1, when Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus," said Pavl Zachary, a Santa Cruz resident. "The laws aren’t changed by people complying with them."
Contact David Scharfenberg at dscharfenberg@santa-cruz.com.
These are government schools, and therefore, the government has a right to promote government service at these schools.
That theory is based on personal experience. We had two foreign exchange students, one a junior, the other a senior. They stayed with us for 1 school year. In the spring, the senior was bombarded with credit card offers. The following spring, after they had left, c.c. offers began arriving for the junior. Since they received no other junk mail, besides coolege info, I believe the school gave out or sold the info.
It's all about money. All of it.
That's right. They're changed by electing representatives that are of a mind to change them. Now, if you want to change these rules, there are a lot of ways to work to do it. But Rosa Parks didn't use a dime of taxpayer's money to do what she did. These elected officials know that if they blow millions of dollars in a legal fight that they also know they'll lose, they finally know that they won't be elected officials very much longer.
How did you arrange the foreign exchange students? I might do that.
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