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.

Comments

Anonymous said…
My son was there then. Do you know approximately how many students attended GHS that year?
NESeamom
4/13/24, 10:12 PM
Anonymous said…
Did you say Parent got call from Vice principal saying Vice principal had accosted Parent’s child? Or was it that VP said student had accosted him?
NESeamom
4/13/24, 10:15 PM
Absolutely Outrageous said…
Thanks for trying to keep the board, superintendent and district accountable.

If we were looking at a private entity, I think the VP would have gotten fired. Instead, the VP has gotten sent to a different school.

4/14/24, 10:34 AM
Melissa Westbrook said…
NESeamom, I don't know how many students attended that year.

The parent got a call from the VP saying that the VP wanted to talk with that parent's child. This was not previously arranged; the VP stopped the student as the student came into the building and told the student he wanted to speak with him.

Because the meeting included the SRO, the VP called the parent to ask if it was okay to speak with the student with the SRO present.
4/14/24, 11:06 AM
Patrick said…
Absolutely appalling.

Did Barnes receive training on how to handle student data? If he didn't, that might explain both why he thought it would be okay to download it, and why the District protected him by transferring him and ignoring parents who asked about it rather than firing him.

I can certainly imagine a clumsy main computer that makes it difficult to look for patterns in the data and wishing to download it to use Excel or something. But that doesn't make it okay.

It's a good thing the District is so flush with money they won't mind yet another completely avoidable court case and judgement against them. /s
4/14/24, 4:30 PM
Stuart J said…
I think the 1903 must include some prior students. The OSPI data portal has enrollment info. For 2020-21, which is the year of the Feb 2021 download, there were 1,734 students enrolled. In 19-20, 1786, in 21-22, 1680. Tracking down former students to inform them of the transcript download could be quite hard and at this point, only the freshmen from 2020-21 are still at the school, at least for a few more months.

https://washingtonstatereportcard.ospi.k12.wa.us/ReportCard/ViewSchoolOrDistrict/101080
4/14/24, 4:47 PM
Melissa Westbrook said…
Well Stuart, what I would say if it were my student, is that I don't give a rat's ass how difficult it might be. I think with social media it could be quite easy.

At the very least, the district needs to admit publicly that this happened and what exactly happened after they learned of it. Because they are still employing Howard and Barnes.
4/14/24, 5:57 PM
Anonymous said…
What's also important is what else has been downloaded to Barnes' personal account? More transcripts, student disciplinary records, IEPs, addresses? And did the district take any steps to prevent future downloading of info to personal accounts, by anyone?
4/14/24, 9:21 PM
Stuart J said…
Definitely SPS should track down the students. I just meant it is not going to be simple mailing to current students in an SPS database. Mailing and email addresses change. I once had a friend who as a grad student at the UW was working on a research project where they were trying to find out what everyone from a high school in Pierce County was doing a year or two after graduation. She said it was really hard getting the last 20%.
4/14/24, 11:51 PM
Patrick said…
I'm not sure how social media would work to track them down. A lot of people still don't use any of the big social media services. And the school system wouldn't know the pennames that people use on social media either. Some parents will still be at the address they were at, but it's not that unusual to move once the kids are grown.

This sets a terrible example for all school employees. Do whatever you want, because the District will cover for you no matter how bad it is.
4/15/24, 11:11 AM
Melissa Westbrook said…
Even if you are a current parent, could you please write to the Board and tell them you want clear statements on this occurrence and what they are going to tell the Superintendent?

spsdirectors@seattleschools.org

Superintendent's office
https://www.seattleschools.org/departments/superintendent/contact/

I do believe they are using the tactic of "it'll all blow over."

There are laws in WA State about such things. You might contact Bob Ferguson's office and ask them to investigate.
https://www.atg.wa.gov/contactus.aspx

4/16/24, 11:50 AM
Benjamin Lukoff said…
"Did Barnes receive training on how to handle student data? If he didn't, that might explain both why he thought it would be okay to download it, and why the District protected him by transferring him and ignoring parents who asked about it rather than firing him."

Unless this was Barnes's first job with computer access, he should have known this even without training.
4/23/24, 10:46 AM
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