Remember that horrific breach by Tewksbury Public Schools that I recently noted? The Town Crier now reports that Tewksbury School Committee member Lisa Puccia has resigned from her seat, “citing the recent data breach as a factor in her decision.”
Jayne W. Miller quotes from Puccia’s resignation letter:
“In light of the recent breach by the school district regarding the Out of District Special Education Student Information, I do not feel that I can adequately fulfill my role as a school committee member given that my child’s information was included on that list and I feel that her privacy was breached.”
Not only was Puccia’s child’s privacy breached, but when the district ranked the parents of special needs students on cooperativeness, Puccia herself had been ranked “3” (uncooperative), the lowest possible ranking.
Although the district had initially denied the whole situation was a breach, they did somewhat apologize, as Miller also reports:
After the data breach became public, Tewksbury Superintendent Dr. John O’Connor issued a lengthy apology to special education families on April 2 for the inadvertent publication of the data.
In particular, O’Connor stated that the parental rankings should have been titled “likely, less likely, and not likely” to describe how willing parents might be to bringing a child back into district, should in-district programming be developed.
Read more on The Town Crier.