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?

A few years my now dd school was pulled up by inspectors for info being accessible, it was on the heads desk, not filed away.
It wasn't floating around the school.
They had 3 weeks to sort it and they were back to check.

This needs reporting to Ofsted, the school need to made aware publicly that they are not adhering to policies on safeguarding.

When I was chair I had loads of information was laying around the office and if I was handed the wrong information bid give it back and not talk to anyone about it. Then I called out gossiping and then the pta collapsed because I wouldn't have it

That's a very big spreadsheet to be left accessible to PTA members. Bit lax of the school really, if they could get to it who else could?

SleepFree you posted this earlier in the thread:
Bloody hell OP you are brave.

I'm trying to understand why you think the OP is brave??

Do you think there will be some backlash from this?

I think you 100% did the right thing OP.

The obvious issue here that parents/PTA members cannot be trusted to be around classroom/working areas without snooping (which should have been foreseen really) so should not have access to those areas of the school without a member of staff present to supervise them.

All parents whose children were on that list need to be contacted by the Head as a matter of urgency and told which details about their children have been made public.

Perhaps the school need to introduce an IQ and an EQ test for all PTA people as it may have filtered out the idiot who has revealed this confidential information to other mothers.

She needs to be threatened with prosecution and have things spelled out to her in simple terms as she is obviously far too stupid to understand the enormity of what she has done. Has she also breached safeguarding by disclosing what she's read and broadcast, if so she'll be in even deeper shit trouble.

The PTA people who listened to her and started gossiping about kids on the list also appear to be less than intelligent enough to deal with the information and need to be read the riot act and told they can also be prosecuted.

Bullies are pretty good at spotting kids with SN as targets from their general demeanour and differences to NT behaviour, but learning a kid has SN via their parent who has colluded in this action, then bullying the kid(s) with SN because of it would be beyond the pale.

Yes, the school should not have left that information where a PTA person could find it, but it's the PTA person's responsibility to notice it's extremely sensitive information instantly, then give it to a member of staff and telling them where they'd snooped for it "found" it without disclosing any of its contents to anyone else.

An teacher e-mailed me with an attachment which gave a progress update on all the pupils in one of my children's GCSE subject.

I opened the attachment as the body of the e-mail didn't make me aware and I had been e-mailing the teacher so wasn't surprised to receive an e-mail. I did read it as I was looking for my son's name. I never told any parents what was in it though.

This sort of thing must happen all the time.

Not just PTA, but anyone who's in school and becomes privy to information that parents who do not go into school don't find out.

And then they go off to yummy mummies coffee morning and blab.

I dread to think what they gossip about - probably totally Chinese whispers half the time, too.

I know people sign confidentiality agreements but this shows how weak they are. Teachers have professional obligations - most helpers in school, whether PTA or not, don't.

Maybe this woman should be barred from school - but so should any parent helper who goes off and blabs to other parents.

This woman was stupid because she (and her co-gossipers) got themselves overheard by the OP - who actually cares.

But there must be thousands of parents gossiping every day of the week.

it's the PTA person's responsibility to notice it's extremely sensitive information instantly, then give it to a member of staff and telling them where they'd snooped for it "found" it without disclosing any of its contents to anyone else

meanwhile, in the real world... See my post above.

To those who assume they can sniff out at 100 paces which children have SEN: you are wrong.

As TA and SN and safeguarding governor, I knew clearly which children had SEN, which had no SEN but behavioural issues which in many cases were understandable if you knew as much as I did about their family backgrounds.
If you'd asked parents at that primary which children had SEN, they would have got some right, wrongly thought others did, and missed off some with significant SEN but great behaviour.

Op, you definitely did the right thing, good for you.

I used to volunteer for victims support. We were informed that not only would we be immediately dismissed for breach of confidentiality. We'd also be prosecuted

Yes you did the right thing. They will get over it. Personally I would push it further and ask the head to speak to the PTA chair and get her resignation. PTA raise a bit of cash for the school but the money comes from the individual parents - the ones her group are gossiping about.

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!

At our school the governors are never given information on specific children, they might get told, 3 children in class b have SEN, or that child X is receiving help for xyz, but names are never used for that very reason- governors are often parents and they do not need to have specific information to do their duties as a governor.

Frankly I would tell the governing body there was a problem with confidentiality- they are the ones legally in the frame if this gets serious.

This is ridiculous. I'd also be calling for a ban for volunteering from the member who found the sheet and then proceeded to read it out. It's a massive safeguarding issue. And the fact she sees it as gossip is disturbing.

I'd chase up with the head to see what steps have been taken.

Ignore the glares. You totally did the right thing

This woman should be hauled into the Head's office and warned that she may be charged with breaching these children's privacy. Her cavalier entitlement is outrageous!

Sorry but I would go one step further and inform the school they have breached the data protection act and make a formal complaint. This is sensitive data that should not be accessible to anyone but those who need to use it. If a PTA person can get in, who has nothing to do with this data, then it should have been locked away. I would be fuming that my child's personal details would be accessible to anyone who could get into the school.

The PTA woman has also breached data protection rules by sharing the info and should be kicked out. It's a ridiculous situation.

That's a very big spreadsheet to be left accessible to PTA members. Bit lax of the school really, if they could get to it who else could?

Indeed. On the other hand, it sounds like this particular mum having access was the worst case scenario.

Agree this is health info which gets extra protection under the Data Protection Act (I know about this stuff for work). The school needs to get its act together on this.

Wait until GDPR comes into force in May 2018 - the school and the individuals would be hung out to dry under the new rules

I'm also wanting to know why one poster called the OP "brave"?!

They should be banned OP, i hope this gets taken seriously

I would like to know how on earth the SCHOOL has been leaving information as important as that lying around somthe helpers could find it TBH.

Yes the mums who took heart interest in the sheet were wrong to actually read it.
But the school is IMO even more wrong to have had lying around.

This is something I would have reported to the governors too TBH.

A friend of mine who worked in social work when the children's act came in was really shocked at the 'confidentiality' when she moved into school work. Things have not changed much - they really need to take this seriously.

Years ago an old Head did pass information about my child to another parent without permission, it was about his vaccination status- the other mum's child had cancer, she told them my son wasn't, and to approach me.

Luckily the mum realised that my kid was the (then) non verbal, incontinent lad waiting for a place at special school, and let me know what had happened, so I could deal with it- she assumed son couldn't be vaccinated, actually he had been vaccinated, the head's lists were wrong as some of our files got lost when we moved.

So as a mum whose information was leaked, thank you for telling the Dep Head, thanks hugely. those of us outside the typical deserve privacy too.

A few years later I found the list of kids who have free school meals on the road outside school, during the recession so longer than usual. I could have gossiped about it, I didn't, I handed it straight in.

You definitely did the right thing and I'd have done the same. Wouldn't give a crap if none of them ever spoke to me again either, wouldn't want to be friends with people who gossip about children like that.