Discipline Database Derailed: Citizen Action Halts Georgia Department Listings -- Rural Policy Matters, Volume 2, Number 6 (June 2000)

In early April, the Center for Children and Education (CCE), based in Macon, Georgia, discovered relatively secret plans of the Georgia Department of Education (DOE) to create a statewide list of "bad" students. DOE spent more than $250,000 to develop a computerized database of "bad" kids receiving discipline in public schools. This system was recently activated, with initial data collection scheduled for July 1, 2000. The database would have personally identified the students, teachers, and administrators involved in all individual incidents of student misconduct, regardless of the severity of the rules violation. This new system threatened the privacy of students and teachers, in addition to creating the grave danger of public access to misleading information about students.

When confronted, DOE claimed that they were merely implementing the data collection statute passed in 1999, which CCE's network successfully drafted and fought to enact in the General Assembly. The statute (a section of H.B. 605) actually only requires DOE to publish an annual report about the aggregate total of different disciplinary actions (expulsion, suspension, etc.) by race, sex, and grade. The true purpose of the law is to document trends in discipline, including excessive punishment and racial inequities. We still do not know the motivation of DOE for "misinterpreting" this simple law and trying to collect individual student information instead of aggregate statistics.

CCE spent a week running around to file legal motions with the state board of education, getting grassroots parents and leaders to contact the state board members for their region, sending press releases, and generally raising the alarm. On April 13, Senator Vincent Fort made a presentation to the state board of education. The board ordered the staff to cease implementation of the discipline data collection system. The board also ordered the staff to comply with the simple requirements of the original data collection statute.

The activism of this grassroots network really paid off, as did the integration between community-level organizing and statewide friends such as the NAACP and ACLU.

--- Brian Kintisch, Executive Director, Center for Children and Education.

For more information, contact the Center at PO Box 6255, Macon GA 31208, 912.750.1007, or email GaSchools@aol.com