Students are permitted to exercise opt out rights under No Child Left Behind.

From Saraj Wunsch of MA ACLU; being passed along FYI

I thought people might want to know that on Friday, September 16, 2005, the Family Policy Compliance Office of the United States Department of Education (FPCO), which administers the military recruiter provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act, confirmed that students are permitted to exercise opt out rights under No Child Left Behind. This was done in an email message responding to an inquiry to that office which also administers FERPA. FPCO said: "Under the military recruiter provisions, a school is required to notify parents and provide them with an opportunity to opt out. However, because the statute also mentions that students may opt out, we have determined that a school must honor a request made by a student who took the initiative to tell a school not to disclose his or her name, address, & telephone number to military recruiters. The confusion over this issue is due to the fact that the question has only recently been raised to us and we have not issued any guidance on this matter (emphasis supplied). This is consistent with the information we provided in materials we sent to all Massachusetts high school principals in late August. We urge people to make sure that high schools are giving students a form which would allow them to opt out of having their directory information given to military recruiters, as well as notifying parents of the right to opt out.

Sarah Wunsch, Staff Attorney
ACLU of Massachusetts
211 Congress St. Boston, MA
02110 617-482-3170, ext. 323
(fax) 617-451-0009
wunsch@aclu-mass.org