the
Issue 14 4.18.05
harbinger
a publication of Shawnee Mission East • 7500 Mission Road • Prairie
Village, KS • 66208
Parent, congressmen seek to end the use of student directories as
Recruiting TOOLS story by Gordon Culver
S
ix months ago, senior Adam Miller received a call from an area military recruiter who wanted to know what he was planning to do after he graduated from high school. The recruiter also wondered if he was thinking about joining the military. Miller answered that he was going to college and that he had no interest in the military. When Miller hung up the phone, he never thought about how the armed services came by his phone number, and if it was odd that they had it. To Miller, this incident may have seemed like nothing, but to East father Toby Grotz, this represents a violation of the student’s privacy and an issue of extreme concern. The military can gain access to the contact information about every student in high school because of a federal law mandating public schools to give the military that information or risk losing federal funding. “The military goes into schools and walks into the office and simply asks for the student directory,” Grotz said. “Since every student is listed, they have information about everyone in the school.” Over the past year, there has been vocal opposition to the law by Grotz and members of Congress. Congressmen Michael Honda of California and Jim McDermott of Washington have introduced a piece of legislation that would repeal the law. At the same time they are running a public awareness campaign to inform people about the section of the legislation. The specific piece of legislation that allows the military to have access to the contact information of students at all public institutes of higher learning is section 9528 of the No Child Left Behind Act. The public, according to McDermott’s office, doesn’t know about the section because it is buried on page 559 of a 670-page program.
continued on page 3 photo illustration by Kevin Grunwald