Tina Kelley reports:
A Cherry Hill resident has asked the U.S. Department of Education to investigate the Cherry Hill School District for releasing the names of dozens of students whose families opted them out of sex education classes.
The breach came after an education advocacy group filed public records requests in every district in the state, to measure how many families were opting out of the classes held under revised sexual education standards, adopted in 2020.
[…]
Superintendent Kwame Morton said the district had redacted the names, but that they reappeared when posted on the OPRAmachine website that helps people file public records requests. The names were removed last week, Morton said.
Read more at NJ.com.
There’s a disturbing allegation further down in the story that at least one school official knew of the breach for almost a year but did not fix it or report it. Even if that is true, however, there is still no private cause of action under FERPA, the federal law protecting the privacy of student information. There is nothing in the news report about whether the district has adequate access logs to determine how many people may have accessed the exposed names.