Seattle Principal Downloaded Student Transcripts to Personal Email Account

A parent has let me know about this transgression that should trouble all SPS parents. Here's what happened.

In January of 2020, a Garfield parent received a call from then Vice Principal Gregory Barnes. She was told her child had been accosted by Barnes and asked to come to his office. Also in the office was the former Resource Officer, Rosel Ellis, a Seattle Police officer. Ted Howard II was the principal in school year 2019-2020.

I can't discuss the issue at hand for that day. However, the parents of the student were not happy about the events of that day and, later in the year,  began asking for more information about that situation. In the course of doing that, the public disclosure officer of the SPS legal department received requests from the parents in August 2021 that included Vice Principal Barnes' emails.

In fulfilling that request, the public disclosure officer had found that in February 2021, Vice Principal Barnes at downloaded 1903 student transcripts. Onto his private email account. The officer asked the parents if they wanted all of these transcripts which would take a long time to redact. The parents just wanted their own student's and declined the rest.

Let that sink in - a Seattle Public Schools' high school vice-principal was able to download 1903 student transcripts to his personal email. 

The parent notified SPS Legal and then Garfield principal Dr. Terrance Hart in October of 2022 asking about the FERPA violation. Dr. Hart never responded. The parent also notified then-Board president Brandon Hersey who said, "I'll make sure this gets looked into." The parents never heard from him again.

The parents had tried to ask SPS Legal, the principal, the school board president, and even a couple of teachers what to do about the transcripts. Finally, they were told by administration to contact OSPI.

In January 2024, VP Barnes was moved to Hamilton Middle School. Some might called that move a demotion. I do find it odd that Mr. Barnes would be moved for just that one incident, severe as it is. It does beg the question of what else Barnes might have done to be moved.

So many questions.

1) I'm going to assume that ALL SPS employees are given warnings during onboarding about downloading any district documents to personal computers and/or personal email. Did that happen with Barnes when he arrived in 2019?

2) Why DID Barnes download all those transcripts?

3) I can't find any notification to Garfield parents of this incident. Why wouldn't parents be told that this happened and steps SPS is taking to safeguard student data, both from internal use and external breaches? 

4) Did SPS explicitly watch Mr. Barnes destroy those downloaded transcripts? 

5)  Can SPS know for certain that Barnes did not off-load those transcripts elsewhere? 

6) I would guess Barnes might have said he was taking his work home but why that many transcripts?

7) Was that the entirety of Garfield High students? Hard to know. 

I preach the gospel of student data privacy all the time but even I cannot believe this happened. It is wrong and outrageous.