RELEASE Bd of Ed Greens in Maine lead on opt-out from school military recruiting

[Deirdre Helfferich]

Date: Sun, 27 Nov 2005 14:28:54 -0500
Subject: RELEASE Bd of Ed Greens in Maine lead on opt-out from school military
recruiting
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Portland Green Independent Elected Officials
Ben Meiklejohn, School Board: 756-7684
Stephen Spring, School Board: 450-1435
Press Release
For Immediate Release: November 28, 2005
Green Independent Party School Board Members Set
Precedent for the State of Maine
A policy authored by two Green Independent Party
members on the Portland School Committee which
allows high school students to opt out of
unsolicited targeting by military recruiters may
become a state law.
Green Independent Party and Portland School
Committee Members Stephen Spring and Ben
Meiklejohn have been getting national
recognition for championing a creative policy
that gives Portland high school students and
their families the option to opt out of having
their private information shared with military
recruiters without their permission. Their
policy makes students and their families aware
of this provision hidden deep within NCLB.
Meiklejohn and Spring’s policy, which was
adopted by the Portland School Committee earlier
this year, allows students and families the
opportunity to opt-out by checking off a box
that is now printed on high school emergency
cards, which parents have to fill out and sign
at the start of the school year. Now a bill has
been introduced in the legislature that would
make the Portland policy state law.
“Everyone eventually agreed that simply adding a
couple lines to the emergency card was the way
to go. It turned out to be the easiest and most
cost-efficient way to inform and empower
students to make important decisions about their
personal contact information,” adds Meiklejohn.
They seem to have struck upon an elegant
solution as cities and towns around the country
are beginning to adopt the policy.
“As members of the Maine Green Independent
Party, we hold transparency in government and
privacy rights for students and families close
to our core,” says school board member, Stephen
Spring, who worked with Ben Meiklejohn to
co-author the emergency card provision that is
now garnering state and national recognition.
On opening day of the school year, Meiklejohn
and Spring welcomed students outside Portland
High School with huge blown up copies of the
emergency card and handed out pencils they had
made up with the inscription:” Welcome Back to
School Portland High Bulldogs. Opt-Out or
Opt-In. It’s YOUR Decision!” They choose
Portland High because it is more frequently
targeted by recruiters likely due to the greater
number of minority and low income students there.
In the September 27th issue of School Board
News, a leading industry publication that is
sent to school board members from the littlest
towns to the biggest cities across the country,
recognized Spring and Meiklejohn for their
precedent-setting boardsmanship in creatively
dealing with this issue.
A bill based on the Portland Schools policy has
been introduced by Rep. David Farrington of
Gorham and will be taken up when the legislature
convenes in January. Spring is pleased that the
policy has made it to the legislature. “I’m
honored to see our work being taken up at the
state level” said Spring. Early data is showing
that students from Deering HS and Portland HS
opted out at rates of 52% and 65%, respectively.
http://www.maine.gov/tools/whatsnew/index.php?topic=HouseDems+News&id=9774&v=Article
http://www.nsba.org/site/doc_sbn_issue.asp?TRACKID=&VID=55&CID=682&DID=36815
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Distributed by the Green Party of the United States http://www.gp.org