February 4, 2009

Student's Records - To Computerize or Not

Whenever parents have questions about services for their child, they usually request copies of all the child’s school records. New York City is currently starting an experiment in computerizing all special education records for students so that they are more accessible to both parents and school staff. The question is- what records will be computerized and how does the parent know those entries are accurate? Unlike a medical record, student records are scattered over many offices and buildings as the child matures into advancing grades. It is not uncommon to have some records get lost. Though they are required to be in a central location, they almost never are. And how will “student records” be defined? Over the years, schools have fought to keep certain records from parental view- test protocols, interoffice memos between administration and teaching staff, telephone logs- the list is limitless. One finds out the extent of the messy record keeping only when due process occurs and the parent is entitled to discovery about the child’s status and educational history. When I first began to request these records in the late 70s, the response was, “What exact records do you want?” The only reply was, “All of them”. The difficulty was that the parent did not know what that included and neither did I. There have been many disputes about whether or not teacher notes were pupil records, or the handwritten notes and observations of a test protocol describing what the child did during certain test questions. I think it a good idea to computerize pupil records, but only if the school cannot go back into the file after entry and change a record it doesn’t like. It will also be important to know who is in charge of pushing the “delete” key on the computer.

The initial aspect of any case is obtaining the complete pupil record- general education, basic skills, pre-referral intervention, evaluations, IEPs, child study team minutes, and progress reports for starters. Inevitably upon reading these, references are made to meetings or discussions for which you have no records. One door cascades into many others that must open in order to really understand the child’s needs, who said what to whom, and how decisions were actually made. In some cases, parents are upset that records have been sent to schools or outside experts without their consent. Or they are upset that only some records were sent but not all of them, focusing on only one or two aspects of the case. Each case is fact specific resulting in different answers as to right and wrong. But there is a bottom line. Pupil records are to describe who the student is, and what is needed to plan and deliver an appropriate special education. Did the evaluator score the test correctly? Does the file support the program being provided? Has the school intentionally tried to avoid the child’s actual disability, in spite of what its own evaluators have said in their reports? How about the school nurse? Does she have a file you don’t know about? Or the guidance counselor? It will be interesting to see how NYC decides to define the special education records to be computerized. There is no definition provided in IDEA statute or regulation, the Family Right to Privacy Act (FERPA) used to argue these issues. Asking parents to handle and understand more than one federal law involving their special needs child is troubling, playing into the power trip of schools who increasingly continue to treat parents as either idiots or criminals when they ask too many questions.

My favorite pupil records story comes from a Newark, New Jersey case. The numerical scores on a standardized test scoresheet were smudged in the special way that only White Out can do. As the trial wore on, there were growing discrepancies in the testimony about the actual scores the child received during his educational and psychological testing by members of the child study team. The Director of Special Services was testifying, a gigantic file on her lap containing all of the student’s records. She sat there in her peach suede suit with matching shoes, a veteran of the New Jersey Department of Education sent to improve school management in Newark. She was a veritable vision, she was, sneering down at me over the witness box, as she placed her peach nail polished hand squarely on top of that file. Body language will do it every time. I moved to compel her to give me that original file, pretending need to clarify the smudged numbers contained in the evidence. Of course the documents had been altered. But how could I prove it? The judge ordered the witness to give me the file from her lap. She hesitated and the board attorney jumped to his feet, “Objection!! Objection!! She is impugning the credibility of my witness!” “I certainly am”, I said. The judge directed me to take the file and to examine its contents with the board attorney.

I opened the file. The first sheet of paper had White Out all over it. Someone or a group of school personnel whited out the white out countless times so that it was little mountain rising from the surface of the paper. I took it to the bench for the judge to see. He told me to go over every document and to determine which had been changed by White Out. .The board attorney asked to go off the record so that this could be accomplished. By now it was nearly time for the OAL to close, so we adjourned for the day. He wanted to take the file and bring it back to me the next day. I refused, insisting on staying there until every piece of paper had been examined. As soon as the judge left the courtroom, the attorney grabbed the file that was between us on the table and ran down the hall to the men’s bathroom. “Come back here”, I yelled repeatedly, running after him. Heads popped out from courtrooms along the hall, and various court employees came down to see what the noise was about. He ran into the men’s room, tearing paper from the file as he went. I pushed the door of the men’s room. He was holding it shut. People yelled, “You can’t go in there!” I finally got inside. There he was- flushing records down the toilet as fast as he could. I dragged him out, took the file, and asked to see the judge. For years, this story was a favorite within the courthouse and became the stuff of legend.

The moral of that story was that there was a paper trail, if you could only get your hands on it. In this digital age, how will we know when the record is false? How can we prove the corruption we feel all around us, masquerading as good will and indignation at any suggestion that things are not as they seem? The size of special education records can number into thousands of pages of paper. As we ponder how to streamline the system to make it more efficient, how can we ensure honesty and accuracy? Think hanging chad and electronic voting that requires a paper trail in order to monitor voting results. The same is true in special education.

One final thought. Over the years, I developed a trick to make sure I had all of the pupil’s records at trial. Before the due process petition was filed, I’d go with the parent to review all of the child’s records, with the guarantee from the school that we, in fact, had every record. I put a tiny pencil dot on the bottom right corner of each page. Nobody knew it was there because you had to look in the exact spot to notice it. When the case went to trial, I checked every document to be sure it had my mark. It was surprising how many didn’t. Contemplate that as you consider record keeping in this century.