AIBU to inform school about naughty PTA mums?

[mrsamerican]

I unfortunately opened a kettle of fish. Our PTA does tea and biscuits for new reception parents on transfer day. The school very intentionally doesn't inform parents what class their child moves into, and the head specifically asked us not to walk through school as we would find out our child's teacher in four hours at the end of the school day.

One mom, while "tidying up" found a master class spreadsheet with the full names, birthday, ethnic origin and SEN status of every child in the school. She then proceeds, with several other parents to inform everyone about which class their child is in, and they all start gossiping. I kept overhearing things like "Oh, I didn't realize so-and-so had an SEN plan. That explains a lot." It was awful, and had I been the parents of those kids, I would have been royally pissed.

I went home worrying about it, and decided that it really broke the data protection agreement we signed with school (our PTA members have to be DBS checked and everything). So, I called the deputy head and discussed it with him. He immediately wanted to know where the list was, and needed to find it as it could be all over the place at pick-up time.

My husband assures me that I did the right thing, but I totally got some looks at drop-off this morning, and as there were only a handful of parents there, they have to know it was me who snitched.

Did I do the right thing? Or is finding out your child's teacher really so important that you threaten the privacy of all the other children in the school we're supposed to be helping?

You absolutely did the right thing. A school I sent DC to previously had a similar incident & it became common knowledge that DD was severely dyslexic (despite being by far the best academic performer in her year - I have severe dyslexia too and know my shit so have provided her a lot of coping strategies). It was inferred I was lying about or exaggerating her status to give her more time at a PTA event, and I was so furious. Took legal action and got back all the school fees I paid over three years - reinvested that into a new private school.

You definitely did the right thing OP.

As an aside, I didn't realise that schools record the ethnic origin of pupils, much less include them on the class list spreadsheets. Does anyone know why they do? It doesn't really seem like relevant information for teaching purposes. Could it instead be the place of birth information that schools have started to collect on behalf of the Home Office?

110% right and well done, What a bunch of tossers.

That is appalling.

So - what's being done? Has that person been banned from volunteering in school? That's what I'd be demanding.

@alteredimages - it's optional for British-born kids. All the schools DC went to asked for their ethnic background to which I answered other or 'mixed asian' without further clarification, because they really have no right to know.

I don't doubt in drspouse, and yet no school I've worked in (4 so far) has seen fit to provide one. Secondary schools, this is, so they are looking at approx 80 classrooms I suppose - it all adds up.

As I say, I would always keep such things in a drawer or in a file on my shelf, but have never been able to lock it. I can lock my classroom of course, but if a pta mum was doing something in my room (not that they do in secondary schools) I would of course unlock it and not feel the need to supervise them.

I once found a similar list but just for my child's class while looking for something else. I just quietly put it back where the teacher had left it and carried on looking for the thing I had been asked to find.

altered ethnic origin info has been collected for a long time. It is used by schools to track the progress of different groups of pupils eg white British boys, Afro-Caribbean girls etc so that the school can see if there are any groups that would benefit from specific interventions to improve their performance, or indeed to see if there any groups that perform significantly better than others and if so what can be learnt from this.

Schools look at all sorts of different groupings of pupils (pupil premium, pupils with disabilities, pupils without disabilities, boys vs girls, pupils with high prior attainment etc etc) to assess pupil progress and performance, ethnicity groups is only one permutation.

I would of course unlock it and not feel the need to supervise them.

Which of course is totally reasonable of you - just as if I had some personal information on a colleague/member of the public in my office but someone else was working there, I would leave them in there to go to the loo/have a meeting!

This is truly truly shocking. There needs to be a full investigation. If I were a parent in the school and my child's details were publically published, I'd be fuming. Both the parent and the school needs to be taken to task. The PTA school mother deserves to be prosecuted.

Thank you for sticking up for the children mrsamerican.

Sometimes sensitive information needs printing out. The member of staff then needs to get from class/office to the printer room before anyone else intercepts. Although with school staff that wouldn't be a problem.

People busy bodying around the school should know better than to interfere with things that don't belong to them.

It's great you reported this. The school needs to tighten up possibly but also block parents like this from inside the building.

Where did she find it? I think I would contact Information Commissioner's office for advice. It's not the sort of thing left somewhere you could find it. Sad for kids with SEN to be subject to such vile gossip :(

My little girl has SEN and is due to start reception next year..... I would be devastated for her to be judged in this manner! it can lead to prejudice and if the parents share the info with their child could also potentially prevent her making friends. her needs are complex enough and I am already worrying enough about what on earth to do with her next year

Tbh I think most people know who has sen it's unlikely to be genuine news.

You say this and yet I know of at least one child at my son's High School who doesn't know HIMSELF that he has Aspergers. His parents don't want him to know...

Appalling behaviour from the other parents, how dare they. YANBU by any stretch of the imagination.

They crossed a line, the only looks they should be giving anyone is one of shame.

You were absolutely right and I wouldn't describe them as naughty. What they did was outrageous and despicable.

Yanbu, it was disgusting behaviour. I once grassed up a parent volunteer who was discussing another child's sen and what support he had in the classroom. Something that nobody would have known about until she told them. Also knew it was me as I confronted her on it. No loss that she hated me after.

This is incredibly serious. I agree with contacting the ICO. There is an issue about the information being potentially left around for PTA people to find, if that is what happened. The school clearly had to take it really seriously to stop the information being spread, and really people on the PTA should have had enough sense to know that they had no right whatsoever to look at the document, let alone gossip about it. Talk of "snitching" is unbelievable childish.

I'd suggest contacting the DH again to check what is being done about this, e.g. are they having a meeting with the PTA committee to discuss how this happened and what they should have done if the document was genuinely discovered accidentally. If not, as suggested above, it needs to be put on the PTA agenda and the head invited in order to discuss this properly. Really, heads should roll but I guess it won't happen if they have difficulty recruiting people to the PTA.

Did the right thing. The school was at fault for not protecting this information properly. In the unlikely event it needed to share this info with the PTA, anyone who saw it should have been trained/told about expectations for those handling such sensitive information.

You did the right thing OP, but I don't get the need for such secrecy about the classes? That is odd.

Thank you so much for doing what you did.
I too have a child with learning difficulties and Mh issues in past years.
I would hate for my dd info to be available for anyone to see.
You really did do the right thing, especially for the child.

The school is 100% to blame, unless the PTA members accessed the office to take the information.
The members need reieving of their duties as they can't be trusted.

They should not be allowed unsupervised access to the school again. They can clearly not be trusted not to abuse this. Of course the list should never have been available in the first place, this was clearly a mistake by the school.

Friend of mine picked up,a file someone had left at toddler group, opened it to see whose it was and found out her own DS was on the SEN list. The file belonged to a perent governor. DS needed speech therapy but the school hadn't yet spoken to her. They soon did when she walked into school with the file!

Thanks @Groupie123 and @CarterUSM. Being asked for ethnic background is one of those things I never noticed before marrying someone whose ethnicity is quite hard to define within the options listed. Now I never know what to tick for DCs and usually refuse to answer.

I can see why you would want to track attainment by ethnic group but I would be amazed if the data were at all useful given the crap categories usually listed. They are so badly defined. "Other Asian" could cover anywhere from Japan to Malaysia and Indonesia to the central Asian republics and technically Iran and the Gulf states, though I am not sure that Gulf citizens would identify as such. It makes zero sense to me. I also think it's interesting that it is just one of many factors tracked but the only one printed out on class lists.

I think I have spent too long in France where you aren't allowed to ask this question.