Whitman Black & White: MyMCPS should not be unrestricted for teachers

In an online Black & White opinion piece dated December 11, 2009, Walt Whitman High School (Bethesda) student Alana Neuman asserts that the new MyMCPS system allows broader access to student data than necessary.

From Ms. Neuman's article:

Any MCPS teacher can view a student’s data if that student attends or previously attended the school that they teach at; a teacher needn’t have taught that student themselves.

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Even if the majority of teachers don’t monitor myMCPS, the mere fact that teachers have unrestricted access to this information demonstrates MCPS officials’ disregard for students’ privacy. Even if MCPS intends to facilitate students’ academic success with this program, SAT and ACT scores aren’t public information that should be distributed among MCPS employees. School administrators and teachers need to obtain consent from students before planning to make use of their standardized test scores.

Back in October 2009, BCC High School The Tattler reporter Tena Thau wrote about MyMCPS in her article titled myMCPS: Facebook for Teachers?.

From Ms. Thau's article:

Students, on the other hand, are not as enthused.  MyMCPS allows teachers and administrators unrestricted access to students’ report cards, transcripts, accommodations, disciplinary history, attendance records, and even SAT and ACT scores. As a result, many students feel that their teachers have formed judgments about them, before they have even stepped into class.

“I don’t like the idea of teachers being able to know everything about their students’ past with the click of a button,” junior Zoë Thorpe explains.  “I feel like students should be able to go into a new class with a clean slate.”

But thanks to myMCPS, no such tabula rasa will exist for students anymore.  Of course, not all students are objecting.  Unsurprisingly, one senior class valedictorian says that she does not mind teachers’ easy access to her flawless four-year record.

The student privacy issues brought forth by Ms. Neuman and Ms. Thau affect students throughout MCPS and would seem to be a topic that could be addressed by the Student Member of the Board (SMOB).

Student record privacy is governed at the federal level by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).