Photo credit: Alexius Horatius (CC-By-SA 3.0)
Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton signed a law yesterday that provides parents with input and schools with guidance about parental notification in terms of surveys. These surveys can be very intrusive.
Minnesotans Against Common Core have pushed this bill, and this is a huge win for parents. They describe the bill this way:
Minnesota Statute 121A.065 states that school districts and charter schools must develop and adopt policies on conducting student surveys and their distribution IN CONSULTATION WITH PARENTS. This is about as close to local control as one gets! Additionally, school districts and charter schools must:
- Directly notify parents of these policies at the beginning of each school year
- Directly notify parents after making any substantive changes
- Inform parents at the beginning of the year if the district or school has identified specific or approximate dates for administering survevys
- Give parents reasonable notice of planned surveys scheduled after the start of the year
- Give parents direct, timely notice, by United States mail, email, or other direct form of communication, when the students are scheduled to participate in a student survey
- Give parents the opportunity to review the survey and to opt their students out of participating in the survey
- School districts and charter schools must not impose an academic or other penalty upon a student who opts out of participating in a survey under paragraph (a).