Parents, students and community activists, your help is needed to lobby the Portland School Board for a more progressive approach to the issue of military recruiter access in our schools. The school board is not doing all that it can to protect students’ privacy rights and to shield students and their families from overzealous and misleading recruiting practices by the Armed Forces.

The “No Child Left Behind” Act of 2000 requires that school districts provide military recruiters with comparable access to high school students as is provided to college and business recruiters. It also requires high schools to hand over the names, addresses and phone numbers of all junior and senior students upon demand by military recruiters. Parents and/or students have the option to opt out of the latter requirement by marking the appropriate check-off box on their student’s registration form.

CALL TO ACTION
Attend	School Board meeting Monday April 12th 6:30 PM Blanchard Educational Services Bldg. 501 N Dixon St, Portland

In response, the War Resisters League has repeatedly asked the Portland School Board to do two things. First, we have asked for a clear and restrictive district-wide policy spelling out the “when and where” of military recruiter access on school campuses. So far, the school board has left decisions about recruiter access to the discretion of individual school principals, resulting in inconsistent and often inadequate protections for students. We expect military recruiters to further exploit these policy inconsistencies as time goes on.

Second, members of the War Resisters League have asked the school board to take a more pro-active approach to ensure that as many parents and students as possible assert their right to keep student records information private and confidential - and out of the hands of the military. The check-off boxes included on the student registration form comply with the law, but they do not go the extra mile to guard student privacy. For one reason or another, many parents are not even aware of the “opt out” option provided by federal law.

Please phone or email the Portland School Board co-chairs and ask them to make these changes before the beginning of the 2004-2005 school year. Tell them that we do not want the Portland school district to lose its federal funding, but we do want school district officials to do all that they can within the bounds of the law to protect our students and their privacy rights. Tell them that we want this issue placed on the agenda for the April 12th school board meeting, and we want these important policy changes (as outlined above) to be enacted shortly thereafter. (See contact information in box to right.)
Please help us with this important lobbying effort by making these contacts and by showing up at the April 12th school board meeting, 6:30 pm at the Blanchard Educational Services Bldg., 501 North Dixon St., Portland.

John Grueschow is a long-time local activist and a member of the War Resisters League.