Student Data is Important, CPS tells us! by CPS Syme

No parent wants this letter - "Notification of Unauthorized Student Information Disclosure". Yet another one was sent out this week to an ex-Ogden parent. 

Parents are also busy requesting their student records and finding unsavory memories. 

A parent, just this week, received a breach notification about events previously occurring at Ogden. 

The parent filed a records request with Chicago Public Schools and upon receiving the results immediately realized that identifying information about a child had been disclosed to people who should not have had it. 

CPS was notified and they in turn were forced to send a notification letter about Michael Beyer committing this breach. The parent is worried about the potential ongoing impact of this breach and is working with the correct agencies to understand what will happen as a result to fix this.

The parent has repeatedly asked 'who' in CPS Law is working on this and for other investigations, but no answers yet. Stay tuned.

​Meanwhile, a different parent asked for other records related to her time at Ogden. Upon receiving some files and reviewing them anew, was reminded of the difficulty she had with now-reassigned Principal Michael Beyer. 

In a letter that Principal Michael Beyer sent to this parent, he indicates that the parent can attend meetings that are subject to the Open Meetings Act, but only with permission! 

This parent was guilty of advocating for her child.

The parent is now really interested in knowing who from the "Law Department of the Board of Education of the City of Chicago" consulted and approved this letter. The person who is carbon copied on this letter, Mary Coker, is not an attorney. She never went to law school. She's not a registered attorney.

Did an attorney from CPS Legal approve this letter before Mr. Beyer sent it to an Ogden parent? When a principal tells someone 'CPS Law' consulted in a letter, a reasonable parent would think an attorney was involved.

Are other employees within CPS Law able to approve communications that seemingly have legal ramifications?

The others carboned on the letter would surely have known that Mary Coker was not an attorney with CPS Legal (or anywhere else) and should have seen the intimidation in this letter for what it was. 
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​Again, stay tuned. ​This is all on the heels of a previously reported data breach at Ogden in WTTW and the SunTimes.