Achievement punished in Tennessee?

When is recognizing achievement a violation of student privacy? One Tennessee school district came face-to-face with this issue when an elementary student's desire to remain off the school honor roll prompted a second look into the practice of posting names.

The issue arose in February at Davidson Public Schools in Nashville, a district of 71,000 students and 129 schools. School spokesman Craig Owensby says the student was concerned that her friends would feel bad seeing her name because they didn't make the list. The student's mother called the school to find out if it was legal to post her name if she didn't want it listed.

No one at that school district had ever raised that issue before. The debate called into question the posting of individual athletic records, such as points scored in a game, and other information on school Web sites, Owensby says. The school attorney found that state law allows districts to disclose student grades, as long as parents give permission. Complicating the issue was the fact that one school principal in the district never posts honor rolls. Principal Steven Baum of Julia Green Elementary in Nashville recognizes students in more private ways, such as with personal notes, school officials say.

In an e-mail to school principals, however, Director of Schools Pedro E. Garcia, said the district would continue to post honor rolls, alleviating some parents' concerns. "Students who do well should be rewarded, and honor rolls are an important way of recognizing their achievements," he wrote.

School officials say they had no intention of banning the honor rolls. "It was a legal issue of permission, but widely understood to be an issue of political correctness and hurting students' feelings and that mistake fed on itself," Owensby says.

The district mailed permission slips to parents and plan to have the slips back in trine to post the March and May honor rolls.

State Department of Education spokesman Kim Karesh says the department received about five calls from other Tennessee districts concerned about the issue, but that most districts comply with the law. "We encourage schools to celebrate academic achievement in any way they see fit," she says. "We just want to make sure they are celebrating it in a way that also protects privacy."