Editor:
Thank you for your article on Bill 11, the Education Statutes Amendment Act, and how school boards are concerned about losing power (“Bill 11 leaves next school year unclear,” June 12).
Another, more worrisome outcome of Bill 11 is how it will change student privacy. If living in Canada under the federal Bill C-51 were not concerning enough, now the province is going to erode student privacy by removing restrictions on the use of student personal information. While I share board chair Betty Baxter’s concerns, as a parent and a teacher, this aspect of the bill is the most troubling for me.
In our local schools, student files are kept one year after graduation, then they are sent to the school board basement. Now that information will be “housed” electronically in the U.S. and will never go away. What about the right to be forgiven for something that happened in elementary or high school? Also, student data will be a part of “big data,” linked to information about other students, and to other government agencies, as well as hackers.
Now, any employee who knowingly discloses “any information contained in a student record that identifies a student” is committing an offence. That is why teachers are confidential. Under Bill 11, it will no longer be an offence.
Parents need to know that their children’s private information is no longer in an office file read only by on-site professionals. Is this OK with parents? Thanks to Christine Wood for bringing Bill 11 to the public’s attention.
Susan Telfer, Gibsons
