 Okay, okay. All right. Are we ready to get started here? We better get started. So we have enough time. So welcome back, pairs of ESU 8. It's awesome to see you all here. We're looking forward to our second attempt at our Zoom sessions here. So we look forward to working with you. Before we get started, I want to take you back to the webpage again to show you a couple things. I'm going to show you where that Zoom link is going to be once this is completed, where you'll go to watch the video if you want to refer back to it or those who are not in attendance can go to. But all of our resources and all of our things we're trying to put in one central place and that's that website for you. So I'm going to share my screen here. And when Tina shares her screen, you'll still be able to see us on my name, Stephanie Wannick, so that we can see you and see the screen all at once. All right. So I'm going to pick my screen here and I'm going to slide over. Okay. Are you all able to see the pairs of ESU 8? Give me a thumbs up. Wonderful. Okay. So from our webpage, just a couple things. If you click right here on this 2017-2018, it's going to take you into the resource page for everything that we're doing this year with you guys. And again, if you scroll down, here's our resources that we had in August. Here's our resources from September. And next to that resource is the Zoom, the recorded Zoom video. So if you want to go back and watch what we did for asking better questions, you can click right here and it will take you to the recorded series video. Now if you scroll down, under October, here is our PowerPoints for October. If you click over here, there's going to be, once we record this video, this will be linked and you click on that and you can watch the video from there. This is also a place where you can click that we have all the rest of our resources. So anything that you need or need to access for our paras visit, you can click right here on this website and get everything that you need. So if you don't have that bookmark somewhere or you don't remember how to get back to it, it's just bit.ly backslash paras of ESU-8. And as you can see, this is the resources that will take you into everything that we're using for this month. And I want to remind you as we go throughout this session today, if you have questions that come up that you hadn't thought of to add to our form before, please go ahead and come to the webpage and click right here. This will take you to that question form where you can ask another question if you want to do that confidence, the confidence reality questions where you don't have to list a name. Right. Thank you. That's what I was like anonymously. So if you want to post those anonymously, otherwise, you will also have a chance just to speak up from your Zoom link. So the way that you do that is you just go to your screen, your Zoom screen, and you unmute, and then we can hear you from there. Okay. And so hopefully you got an email from me last week with information on how to use our website, where to go to register for today. If you didn't get an email from me, it's probably because we don't have your email address, or we don't have your correct email address. So if you've checked your email and you haven't seen things from us, just please email one of us and say, Hey, my correct email is, and we'll get you in our database there. Yep. We want to get that all created and fixed up right. So let's go ahead and get started. I'm going to pull up our slides here. This month, we're talking about confidentiality and FERPA, and this is directly related to your interests that we got from you guys back in August. So again, this, I'm Tina Souser from ESU 8, my emails on this slide and and I'm Steph Wannick. So it's nice to see you all again. And thanks so much for tuning in with us. Sorry, I'm not a good slide controller. So we have a special guest with us today, Kathy Fiala, our director of our school psychologist. So yeah, Kathy's on with us. And we're excited to have her and her expertise with us today. So welcome, Kathy. Thanks. Glad to be here. Alright, so let's go ahead and get started. At our last, in our August training, we talked a little bit about FERPA and and what it is and some of the things that you need to know. And FERPA actually is, and Kathy, can you help me with the acronym for it? I just noticed Family Education Rights Privacy Act, I believe. Thank you. And the act is meant to protect students, parents, staff, privacy, and protect the information that it can and could be shared out through from a school district. So a lot of us are familiar with HIPAA, right, for health information. And FERPA is the education version of that. And so some of the details that you guys need to be aware of. There's we talked about not sharing valuable information, situations that you might be exposed to where somebody may ask you for certain types of information. Those kinds of things are protected under the FERPA laws, and certain things you can and you cannot share. Kathy, do you want to allude on a few more of those areas where they might need to be aware? Sure. Well, I would say, you know, FERPA definitely protects identifying information. But then our best practice in schools goes beyond that to really just think about confidentiality. And I guess a lot of times when I'm thinking about sharing information, I try to think about, well, what if this situation involved me, or what if this was my child, or my grandchild, or my nephew or niece, or whoever. I just try to think, before I give a response, I always try to think about that, like, what would I want shared about me or someone close to me. So, you know, FERPA is pretty specific to identifying information, and you're pretty limited in what you can share as far as identifying information. And I think we'll get into some of that with the questions. But in our day-to-day dealings with people, when you get questions asked of you, it's probably oftentimes not, hey, can you share this person's full name with me, or can you share their phone number? But sometimes you might get those. Those things are definitely protected under FERPA. But then other situations are more just kind of good confidentiality practices. And I like how you stated, you know, what if this was me, always remembering that in your situation is a good idea. And another one that comes up a lot is, you know, what, what information is appropriate to share? And who can you share it to? And we're going to cover that in a few more slides as well. But I guess another acronym, because education is great for acronyms, we have a lot of those. We were sitting down talking about some of these points and in what information we could share and feel comfortable sharing. And this acronym kind of came up. And basically, if you can, the R stands for refer to someone else. And Kathy, you made a good point when we were having a discussion about who, who you should be referring those questions to. Do you want to allude on that a little bit? Yeah. And I mean, I think that this, this comes up frequently, you know, in schools when someone's asking a question and you're thinking about, do I answer that or don't I? And sometimes in the moment, it's hard to know. So, and I get in that situation too. So sometimes I think, oh, can I refer this question to someone else, you know, who maybe can make the decision about whether or not to share information. And so, and I think in another slide or two, we'll talk about like, who could you talk to about all students in your building? Who could you talk to about some students? So we will share some more information about that. But, you know, when you can refer to someone else and, I don't know, I think kind of maybe deflect it from you a little bit, if you're not sure, refer to someone else like maybe, oh, you know, let's talk with that with the principal or, or, you know, someone else or the classroom teacher. So I like to refer to other people whenever I can. And so we tell teenagers to do that all the time, right? Blame it on your parents. Blame it on your parents while you can't get into that situation. Do the same thing. Say, you know what, my principal doesn't want me talking about that or, you know, my principal might be better to answer that question for you and feel comfortable with that. That's okay to do. Absolutely. When people keep asking you, if you do it enough times, they're, they're gonna stop asking and they're gonna go right to the source anyway. So, but the next part of that is, is always be cautious of what you say. So I think being aware of the FERPA laws and being aware of what you are saying and what you are sharing, if you're cautious about it and you err on the side of caution, you're going to be okay when you're going to be covered. Just being knowledgeable about those types of things and being aware. And if you kind of have that principal rule, would you, would you be embarrassed or would you be caught if your principal heard you saying it? You know, kind of think there. And back to what Kathy said, if it was you in that situation, would you want somebody to share that information about you? And I think that's a great way to think about it and in a great way to be cautious about the information, which then also leads us to the A, which is be aware of who you're talking to about certain situations. And I think that is our next slide. Who can you talk to? Because sometimes we do need to talk and we do need to share. We need, do need to get information. So what are or who are some people that you can talk to about a student at any time? Right. And you know, I think that this is a great representation of who can you talk to about any student and probably nearly any issue that is happening in your school setting. These are the three people that you could talk to about any student, pretty much any situation, any time. These are people that the principal, the superintendent and the counselor have knowledge of all the students in the district. So going to them about any issue is probably going to be okay. It's probably going to be keeping it confidential. You're going to people who have knowledge about all the students and about most information about those students. Okay. And then of course, you have those situations where you need to address a specific student. So who and how can you address those situations? So these three, you know, categories here, the classroom teacher, a sped teacher, a specials teacher, you know, you could talk to them about the students that they're responsible for. And maybe Kathy, you have more to add in there for me. Absolutely. You know, and I think that, you know, thinking about, ooh, which one would you go to first? I think it depends on the situation. So if it's a situation that occurred and you know that the classroom teacher was part of the situation, then you would want to talk to the classroom teacher about the situation first probably. You know, but the special ed teacher and a specialty teacher, if they have knowledge of the particular situation that you're talking about, then those might be great people to go to as well. And sometimes, you know, you might see something happening, say in the hallways between special class and the classroom or something like that. You know that that's maybe a behavior or something that the classroom teacher's been working with. But maybe the special teacher needs to know also. So, you know, those are times you can go to them. But now should you go to any classroom teacher about any student? Maybe not. Because if it's not that classroom teacher's students, it's probably not that other teacher's business or that other teacher's responsibility to deal with. So, you know, it's kind of a need to know basis sometimes. And I think sometimes when there are some of those behavior situations that you might see outside of a classroom, you know, if it happens inside a classroom, you probably, of course, you're going to talk to that teacher, you know, about it. But if it is something that's happening in the hallway, talking to the special ed teacher, if it's a special ed student, is probably the best place to start. Because there may be some things in that student's IEP that maybe deal with hallway behavior or certain ways to manage that behavior. Talking to a colleague who maybe worked with that student previously or who has knowledge of that student previously. You know, you might think automatically that's the person to go to, but it's probably best to go to the special education teacher first and or the classroom teacher and ask, Hey, I know this other person that works in our building worked with this kiddo last year. What do you think if I talk to them and got some strategies for what they use last year? Like if you're, you know, having to deal with with the situation, but I would I would tend to go to the case manager first, if possible, or the classroom teacher first before maybe going to other people who may have previous knowledge, but maybe don't have current knowledge of the situation that's going on at that time. And hopefully everybody's working as a collaborative team and will bring, you know, the right people in to whatever is best for the students. OK, so we talked about, you know, if people are asking you questions, because sometimes those questions about other students can come up in situations where I wouldn't say it catches you off guard, but you're in a in a different situation. For instance, when we were talking in August, we talked about, you know, somebody watched, walked up to you in the grocery store or while you're out eating supper or something like that, can you create a default response so that you're not over sharing or sharing information you should not be sharing? And that's where we kind of go back to the idea of, you know, I'm really not allowed to share that kind of information. You can go, you can refer to your principal or your superintendent, those people that have have more leniency, I guess, in that way. Well, or even just to say something like, you know, what? Hey, that's a school question. Why don't you give us a call tomorrow at school? We didn't get the right person to handle that for you or whatever. And I know it gets a little hard in our small towns when we have our friends and our neighbors asking us things, but yeah, to have that kind of default response in your back pocket is a nice thing. And your default response should usually include that person that you would refer them to so that, you know, it's out of your hands and you don't have to feel uncomfortable about sharing the wrong information. And that kind of takes you out of that. Maybe sort of gossipy nature that it might take if you're saying, hey, maybe you better ask my principal about that. And if you always have that default response to go back to, you don't have to just fumble to come up with one when you're speaking to somebody. You just always have that same response when somebody does kind of catch you off guard. So does anybody out there listening have a situation that's come up kind of with this default response that we talked about a little bit this summer? So anything that's worked for you as you've been communicating with people this school year so far? If you do, you could unmute and tell us all about it. A situation or even a response that you've come up with that works well for you. We're going to practice wait time even on Zoom. A review from last time. Okay, we'll let you off the hook this time. We'll keep going. All right, somebody's going to have to talk in Zoom land there. Okay, so when we sent out our the information Stephanie sent out, we had a link in there to submit some questions and their anonymous questions. But we felt that you guys probably all had questions that were good for the group. And so we're going to kind of go into and dive into those questions now and so remember, if you want to add some more questions to the conversation, you're more than welcome to do that anonymously now that I have that word right or you can just or you can just unmute and ask us if you're if you're it's something that you're not shy about. Yes, definitely. So one of the questions that came up was if a situation is published in the newspaper, are you okay to give in depth details to people asking more questions? And Kathy, I think to me, the key point in this is in depth. Right, I agree. When I read that question, that's how I felt too. I think I think you're okay to share what's been publicly shared already. So you're okay to share what was in the newspaper. If someone's asking you more in depth details, I would go back to that refer. You know, if you have further questions about that, I'd be happy to, you know, refer you to the principal or talk with you in the principal or the classroom teacher, whoever would be the appropriate person to refer to. But giving more information than what was shared in the newspaper, I probably wouldn't. And probably in most of my responses, you'll hear me say, Oh, I don't know. I'm usually pretty tentative about sharing student specific information. I always err on the side of caution and confidentiality. You know, rarely do I think, Oh, I wish I would have shared more information. You know, usually you hear people say, Oh, maybe I shouldn't have said that in front of that person. And so I always think it's best to err on the side of caution. And so if there's something published in the newspaper and you know what was published, share that information. If you didn't read the article, then I wouldn't share anything. If even if the person is saying like they have some knowledge that maybe was shared in the newspaper, but you yourself didn't read it. So you don't know exactly what was published. I would say, you know, I really don't know much about that situation, but you could sure call the school and talk to the principal about that or talk to the classroom teacher or whoever you think is the appropriate person to refer. But I would refer to someone else on that. And you even might go to your principal and say, Hey, some people are asking me about this, that they saw in the newspaper. What would you, you know, when they asked me, what should I say? Or what, what am I allowed to say at this point? Yeah, and I think that's a good point, Steph, because if you're getting a question, it's probable that somebody else is going to get a question too. And so if you do bring that to the principal or the counselor or the superintendent, whoever, you bring it up to them saying, Hey, I had a question about this. It's likely that other people are getting questions too. Maybe the district would decide to just go ahead and say, OK, here's what we would, you know, here's what's okay to share. And I think your principal would be thankful that you brought that to their attention as well so that they can also prepare the rest of the staff or prepare other people. And sometimes those little responses that we give, we call them elevator speeches. So if you're riding in the elevator with somebody, what's the uniform message that any of you would give to a person asking that question? So, oh, you're asking about our school merger. What should I say to you in this situation? And that is one isn't probably even confidentiality on student information, but just district sensitive kind of information. So is there any other questions in relation to that one or any more details that we can specify for those of you out there in Zoom land? Ask away, unmute. We're going to get you to talk. We love to hear your voices today. We made you mute right away, but OK, well, we'll move to our next question then. All right. Next question says, can you discuss information with a parent about their child if the parent asks? This is a great question. Kathy, I'll let you allude to this one. You know, again, I think if the parent is just asking about their own child and you have information that it's it's it's maybe something that you yourself saw or were witness to or have the information you might be able to share it. I definitely really like to if I can maybe have another person with me when I have that conversation, especially if it if it's a little bit of a sticky situation. I would probably, you know, maybe say, hey, I'd be happy to talk with you and the teacher about this situation, you know, that way. I always worry about it being being said that, well, Kathy said this to me about the situation when maybe Kathy didn't say that, but then it's just my word against somebody else's word. Again, I just think back to airing on the side of caution. You know, when holding back some of that information, not that you don't want to share information with people. I'm not saying that if it's appropriate, but. You know, it's it's good to have maybe a couple of people involved in the conversation if you can. But again, discussing information with a parent about their child, I think it depends on what what the situation is. If they're, you know, asking, you know, is their student making a lot of mistakes when they're reading and you're right there in their reading group. OK, maybe you can easily share that information, but if it's if it's kind of a stickier situation, maybe that involves other students. Then I think it's harder to just share that information. My mind jumps to things like playground. Yes, or lunch duty or bus duty. Some of those times when other eyes aren't around, they're watching. You might be there monitoring kids, but they might be saying if this kid's picking on my kid, right, lining up for the bus. You probably want to get somebody else involved there and have your principal there with you, because if you've been noticing something, you've probably reported that already to a classroom teacher or to a principal and it'd just be best to have yet that extra set of ears so that you're making sure that the right message gets sent. And I think I think it's important to note that you it's OK for you to say, you know, I don't feel comfortable having this conversation alone, you know, just saying. Referring that you have to have somebody else there to not necessarily support you, but just make sure that the information that's communicated is clear. And, you know, if you say that to a parent, they may push further, but I think you just you just stop and say, you know, I just I don't feel comfortable having this conversation alone. I'd like to have like Kathy mentioned before. I'd like to have the classroom teacher involved, or I like to have the administration involved. They even say, you know, if you'd like me to, I can check with them to set up a time or what's good for you to come in and meet, but not so that you're not so they don't feel like you're really blowing them off. You might state that, you know, I'll follow through with having having the conversation with an administrator and see when we can set up a time or something like that, or even just say my principal refers that we have this as a group conversation. So. And I think another thing, too, if you're if you're feeling put on the spot, it's OK to say, you know, thinking about part of a default response could be something like, you know, well, I really wasn't I wasn't in the classroom or I wasn't there for that whole for the whole for the whole thing, whatever it was. You know, I wasn't there the whole time. I don't really have knowledge of the entire event or something like that. But I know this other person could answer all your questions. That would be a response as well. Is there anyone out in zoom land again that would like to ask more about this type of this sort of question? Or do you have anything else to add to it? Or even a certain question that parents have maybe asked you that you want advice on? Here's somebody's coming. If I had candy, I'd throw it your way. OK, my question is this from Stuart, say if there's something that happens in the hall with a high school student. I'm just I say they get into a fight or something. Yep. And the parent. Downtown sees you like at the store or whatever and says, hey, I heard my kid gotten to fight today or I heard this happened in the hallway. Can we discuss that with them then? Or is that more of a situation that they need to come up and talk to? You know, in that situation, I might even say to them, you know, there was a situation and it was handled by the administration. And so I'm going to let them go ahead and handle that. Why don't why don't we have a meeting together? OK. Yeah, I would agree. And especially because sometimes that first question can then lead to, well, my kid got suspended and I heard nothing happened to the other kid or what happened to the other kid. And that's not information that you can share at all. So I think there again, it's best just to refer and to and you may not. You may have heard maybe what the outcome was, but you don't. You maybe weren't involved in the in the exact situation. So it's probably best there to say, hey, you know, I really don't know all the details. But, you know, I'm sure that the teacher or principal can answer those questions for you. And I think in this same before to make the parent feel not like they're being put off. Right. Really kind of empathize with them and say, gosh, I can tell, you know, I would be really worried if I, you know, I can understand why you're worried. But I just feel like we probably need to talk to the administrator because they were the one who really handled it. And maybe another thing to think about there, too, is another part of that is where where the parent might approach you or where the community person might approach you. And you could always say something like, oh, I'm not sure this is the best place to have that conversation either, you know, other people might over here or whatever. Like at school would be a better place to have a conversation. Definitely a great point. And I think it's nice when you even say, you know, why don't you call school in the morning? But I'll be sure to talk to my principal, too, just to show that you're putting some effort into it and not just silencing them. OK, we're discussing maybe like at the bar, probably would not be a good place to discuss this. Maybe not. That would probably be one of the worst places, yeah. That would point. Great. Thanks for sharing and thanks for the question. Did anybody else have another question to add or a statement to add to this one? You know, I think, I mean, I think we laugh about that. But honestly, that is a real situation that happens. And I know that, you know, I know that it happens. And the bar, the grocery store, the backyard, walking in the street. I mean, it just it happens. So I think, you know, yeah, oh boy, we all laughed about it, but it happens. And I think that's where before when we were just saying about having a default response that's your go to is just kind of a nice thing to be able to pull out and make that statement and then you can just move on. Yeah, and those places are when you really get caught off guard, you know, because you're not thinking in the moment. You're not thinking about probably school at that point. You're out of your environment. So those are the times where you really do need those default responses so that, you know, you have a quick to feeling too uncomfortable or we're out of place again. But sometimes there's a little bit of happy news to share too. Like, oh, your child did so good. I was progress monitoring them in dibbles this week and they got to this number. They were doing so good or or, you know, the mom might ask you, oh, my gosh, how's he doing tying his shoes? We've been working on it so hard at home and you might, you know, be able to say, hey, they got, you know, that I'm not having to help them anymore with that or something. But those are the more happy occasions that I've just shared. Sometimes when it's a little bit more negative, that it's hard to share that and you'd want to go on to get some help. OK, next question is given confidential information, how is it to be stored? And so I really like this question because I recognize most parents do not have their own probably desk in the school, right? Ladies, would you agree with me? Ladies and gentlemen, would you agree? You don't have like a desk or a file cabinet just of your own in the school. And so if you're given some information that maybe you're not supposed to share out, where could we store this or where could we keep it? What I guess can you give me an example or. I guess I'm not sure I'm thinking. I guess I'm thinking of I can give you I can give an example of myself while you guys are thinking maybe or giving a response. You know, I find that I have confidential information, student information with me all the time. And I, you know, have it with me a lot. And so I am very careful. I travel around to schools and I have a desk at my office, but that's not really where I might store the stuff that I'm working on right in that moment. So I try to be really careful with everything that I have that is student records and things. I'm I always keep them like under walk and key a little bit. If I'm walking away from where I've been working and I was working on student information, I usually clear everything off of where I was working in case another teacher or student or our parent walked past just because I feel like I need to keep all that stuff really confidential confidential. So I try to always put everything away in a bag, in a case, something like that. So that's what I try to do with student information. If I send something to a printer that is confidential, I try to, I mean, I make sure I'm like next to the printer when I send it so I can pick it up right away. So as far as confidential information, you might have to store. I guess I'm thinking like putting in a CUME file. If a teacher has a storage cabinet and you have information that you would need access to regularly, maybe you could store it in in one of their files or something. But does anybody have an example of specific confidential information you might have that you'd be looking to store somewhere? You guys have to store your permission. No, I have to ask that. You know, I have a thought that came to mind because in my old district, when parents would do testing with students, oftentimes they would have to find a location. Right. It's obviously not a good place to test, but it was the only option. And so to me, you know, if you're testing a teacher, just like you should have to get up and get the next student and have that information laying out on the table because 91st of the time, that student's name is right on top of the information. And so just having that information or picking it up and carrying it with you when you go to get to that, even if you're coming back to that same location. Yeah, I think that's a good idea. Mm hmm. I mean, I'm kind of thinking about maybe a teacher printed out a double and so that you have some student performance levels on there. You know, that's sensitive information that's nobody else's business, right? And what grade some other child receives or what what level that they're scoring at. So that would be something you wouldn't want to leave out in the hall at that table or something like that. So again, if you can find in the office or in another teacher's classroom, just one drawer or something like that, that would really help out. And a lot of times your guys's space is definitely shared space. Even if you do have an office, it's probably not your own independent office, unless you're very lucky. I didn't have my own office, but leaving that stuff out, just even on a desk that might be your own desk where it's visible for others walking through is not the best practice. And oh, gosh, I had another thought there. It was there. I interrupted it. Oh, some sped files have to be locked up. So in your special ed teachers' room, you'll probably see file cabinets that are actually locked up, right? However, in other files, like I would say Dibble's reports and grades, that kind of thing. I think if they're safely put away in a place that aren't just let out or open eyes, that that's OK, too, that they wouldn't have to be literally locked in. Any questions about storing confidential information? Nope. OK, OK. We'll go on to the next question here. And the next question is, what is the confidentiality? I mean, to me, that's that's a big one, because not only is confidentiality important at the state level. It's it's important at the federal level. That's why we have laws to protect the confidentiality of our students and our parents. So some of us are more private than others. I kind of view myself as an open book. I don't mind when people know my business. Most of the time, most of the time I'm the one sharing. And so sometimes for people like me, it's hard to understand why other people are private. But we have to respect their rights and the bottom line that that it isn't our business to share their own. And we just would never want to be caught in that situation where we might really offend someone or, you know, sometimes information is used against people. And if they don't want someone to know that, you know, we would never want them put in that position. And Kathy, would you be able to speak more to the the reality of it? I mean, if if information is figured, is there a legal situation that the case I mean, absolutely, I think, you know, you if that would probably be something that you could talk with your principal about, about what what kind of ramifications would there be for sharing confidential information? But I know in districts that I've been at, there have been, you know, serious repercussions when confidential information has been shared and appropriately, including, you know, I can think of a situation where someone lost their job over it. And certainly, you know, I guess I don't ever want to be in that situation where I've been, you know, part of where I shared confidential information inappropriately. And so I guess because I've seen that, that's why I definitely always try to err on the side of caution. And I just it's just really important for students and families. And like Seth was saying, I think we're all different in what we want to share with people or what we want shared with people. And it's not my job to decide that for somebody else, you know. So you're sharing it just with those people who are definitely part of the team or, you know, part of the situation. Hearing with the people who, you know, you can share with the principal, the guidance counselor, the superintendent, you know, really keeping it to a small group of people. And if those people decide to share with other people, then that's that's their decision. But I try not for that not to be my decision. I mean, you know, I really try to just really keep things in strict confidence. And it really puts your reputation on the line, too. I know I was teaching at an out of state school district several years ago and I'm a substitute who we had a lot in our building. She was a mom of kids in our building. Didn't my job that I got because she walks a lot in neighborhoods. That was she was a good teacher, but she talked a lot in the neighborhood and our principal was scared of that. We didn't want that to be part of. OK, and actually a little bit of what Kathy alluded to is the next question. Who can we talk to when having difficulties? And I think you kind of covered that in a couple of our slides. Is there anything or anyone that wants to add to that question or have wanted to allude on a little bit more? Is there anybody maybe that we didn't mention that's in your building that you feel like you can go to and talk to? You know, a legal person to talk to? Or even you have questions on going to someone within your business. Doesn't relate to it, but you're really cutting out and we're just trying to figure out if it's us or you. OK, does anybody else have trouble? Which school is that talking Stuart Stuart. OK, OK. Are there any other schools that are cutting out? Yeah, this is Boyd Downey. We can barely hear you, too. You're not you're not cutting out, but we can barely hear you. I would say that I'm having more difficulty at times hearing Tina rather than Steph. So I don't know if one of you is sitting closer to the microphone than the other. I'm a little closer, but you know what, I will speak up. I've been told that you're Kathy. Fine. OK. Also, we might need to test this with you at some other point to make sure that the location where you are in your school has getting good enough Wi-Fi. So maybe when Tonya is there on Monday, we can test it with her. Yeah, we'll do that. I'll make a note of that and we'll test with Tonya. And and please note, because some of this information may be very valuable to you, you can go back and look at the recording to if you feel like you've messed up. So but we are absolutely prefer to have you in attendance, of course. So we'll get that figured out before next time. So the question could have said, who can we talk to when having difficulties hearing? In Zoom. OK. We actually were getting close to our time here and we have a couple more questions. And I want to make sure that we open up the floor for more once we're done here. So the next question and like I said, I'll try to speak up. So hopefully that helps. But how much medical information are we allowed to know about students we work with on a daily basis? And this question was actually this type of question was actually brought up in August and we had a good discussion over it. So, Kathy, is there anything you could add to that type of question? You know, I think especially medical information, we should be really stingy about sharing because that would involve HIPAA as well. So sometimes I know of some medical information because it's part of a situation that I'm involved with. But it really, you know, sometimes you hear need to know and I think medical information probably is need to know. So as far as how much you'd be allowed to know, I think it would depend on the situation that you're in. If it's a student who has a, let's say, a seizure disorder and you are responsible for that student for part of the day, I would say that it would be very appropriate for you to know that student's medical situation in case they have a seizure and a seizure when you're with them and you need to know what's the appropriate thing to do. What's the plan? Who do I call? Or what, you know, what's the protocol? You know, but as far as like background, medical information, diagnoses, parent diagnoses, I don't know, there's all kinds of things that sometimes I think might be talked about or discussed, but I think it just depends on who needs to know that information and the why. So if there is a real reason to know it because you're in charge of that student and it could put them at medical risk and you need to know the protocol to follow, you need to know that information. If it's not something that's quite that vital, then maybe not. But again, I think, you know, refer to someone else to ask, Hey, I've heard that maybe there is a medical situation for this kid. I am their, you know, I am the recess supervisor and I guess I'm a little nervous about that, you know, what I need to look for, what do I need to look out for? So I think that would definitely be appropriate, you know, to ask the teacher or ask the counselor or the nurse or somebody like that. I think sometimes to, you know, we want to, we just want to think about, is it that I need to know it, you know? I think Kathy, this came up when we were talking a couple weeks ago, we need to be careful about what other kids here do. Right. We might be privy to some information like the fact that a student needs to go to the office and take some meds after lunch every day. But the rest of the class doesn't need to hear that. Or we might know that a student has some bathroom issues and might wear pull-ups or something like that. But at no point should the other kids ever hear that we're going to go change a pull-up or on and on, whatever it may be. Thank you for bringing that up. I kind of, that flitted through my brain and then I, I kind of forgot my track there. So yes, you know, if you're wondering if a student took their medication, if they're not acting like they took their medication, and I know that that happens sometimes. You know, it's appropriate to maybe ask the teacher, hey, you know, did that, I am aware that the student takes medication. I'm not sure, did he get his medicine today? Did she stop in the office? If the teacher asks you to maybe ask that student privately, we definitely wouldn't want to in front of the class say, hey Tina, you are running all over the classroom. Did you take your medication this morning? You know, it'd be better to walk over to the student and maybe privately say, hey, did you have, did you stop, remember to stop in the office and take your medication? Or even verify with the nurse first or the person who's in charge of dispensing the medication. Did this student indeed stop in? Sometimes students are not the best reporters of whether or not they've done those things. So we could always verify with the nurse or the office staff that's in charge of that as well. And so I think that we're also bridging into food allergies because, oh well, I'm gonna skip ahead a little bit to food allergies and then we'll come back, but that's a health issue too. And so I guess, Kathy, I'm interested here and I have a question. Is it okay for the cafeteria workers, the lunch room that cooks in the school to know about any food allergies? Well, I guess I'm thinking of students who have like significant allergies to tree nuts and things like that. And in those situations, sometimes it's a life or death situation that they cannot be around those products at all. I know my own kids came home and said that, and we got a note about it too. There is a student who has significant, I don't know, I believe it's tree nut allergies or whatever, they're not allowed to bring snacks to school that have any tree nuts or peanut anything in them. So I think if that information is being shared with everyone and is being shared with students. So if you have heard possibly that a student has food allergies, I would verify that with someone else. I would refer to somebody else and say, hey, I've heard maybe the student has food allergies. I just wanna make sure that I'm not exposing them to something that I shouldn't be in case you're eating lunch around them or whatever. Or is that information that needs to be shared with everybody, so other kids who bring their food in, whatever, I would refer to someone else about food allergies. And just to ask, does the student have allergies? Do I need to know about that? And then if so, does it need to be shared with other people as well? So I would refer to someone else about food allergies. Yeah, and that was definitely a situation I had as a teacher one day as I sat in a teacher's lounge eating my lunch and took a bite into my cookie bar and realized it was peanut. And I literally had the only student with a peanut allergy in our school in my classroom. And I took off running to the lunch room and the student was already out at recess and ran to the lunch room. And trying to see if he was okay. And after lunch, I asked him what he did and he said, oh, I just asked my friend over here if it was peanut and so I didn't need it. He had a great problem solving strategy, but it definitely did scare me because I wasn't sure that they'll wear that food allergy. Right. Great question. Okay, one last question we better be hitting here. And I think that this one may have been in relation to the information that can be shared. It says student guardianship of either parents or family members. I'm wondering if that was a question about if that information can be shared with you as a para. So basically what I'm thinking is that question may be who has guardianship of the children? Sometimes that guardianship issue can come up. I know for school staff, if the person is in charge of dismissing and you're wondering who can really take that kid home, who am I allowed to dismiss that child to? And so there I think it's appropriate for you to know the information about guardianship of either parent or family member for you to know it, but probably not okay for you to share that information. If somebody's asking you about that, I would probably refer to a principal or a secretary. I think Steph, you had mentioned when we were planning, maybe a specific question had come up about, oh, what if a parent is asking me for another parent's name because their child wants to invite this child to a birthday party or something like that. So I did kind of look back at the FERPA guidelines and that is identifying information that you'd be sharing. Sometimes class lists are sent home and so then it's kind of, it's been sent home and so you're okay to share it, but you don't always know that. So I would refer, I would refer to the principal or the secretary and I think Steph, I think you had an idea too, maybe where you said, you would say, hey, I can send, I'll give that parent a note saying that you would like their information and then you kind of put it in the other parent's ballpark if they choose to share their information, then they choose to share it. If they don't, they don't. And I see this situation as being, you guys often have a bus duty or duties outside where the kids may be picked up by a certain parent or grandparents. And so I would like to think that you would have the information about the students who cannot lead with a certain person or who they would or would not be left with. And, but I think as a para too with you having those sorts of duties, I would think that it would be fine for you to ask the classroom teacher or the administrator, your contact people, you know, hey, is this student supposed to be with or not? And again, as Kathy mentioned though, that's an information that you don't need to share with anybody, but you might need the information to make sure that things are happening appropriately during your bus duty or things like that. Or with these last two questions, both of them to say, hey, principal, are there any kids with food allergies that I need to be aware of as I am in my lunch duty? Or, hey, principal, are there any situations I can't be with a kid home or with a parent or a grandparent or something like that as I'm on bus duty? And, you know, then they'll let you know if there's certain situations because usually in our schools, those are very few and far-fetched. Yeah, and like I said, I don't think it's something where you should be afraid to ask those sorts of questions because you do in some situations need to know that for the safety and security of the kids. And as long as that's your main direction with it, I'm sure that information comes here. I'm going to, for time's sake, I'm going to get out of this screen and I'm going to go back to our question field and see if anything has been added. And it looks like there's nothing been added. So those of you who are in Zoomland, do you have any questions that you would like to ask while we have Kathy still here with us to help me answer those? What other confidence questions? Okay, sorry. Dude, do you hear me? Uh-huh. Okay, head lice. When there's a student in the classroom that has head lice, why is it that the other parent of the children in that class do not get notified? I mean, they don't need to know who it is, but why aren't the other parents notified that there's this problem in our room? Keep an eye on your children. I would probably ask that question to your principal or to your school nurse. I think each district might handle that a little bit differently. It's confidential. Yeah, and from my understanding, and Kathy, you can correct me, but I believe that that goes back to HIPAA rather than FERPA. But we're not, I'm not saying that they need to tell the parents who has the head lice. It's more of a courtesy thing to let parents know there's a child and there's somebody in your child's first grade class that has head lice. Keep an eye on your child to keep your eyes open for anything, you know? You're not telling the people who has it. You're just letting people know that it's there so they can watch for it. And I think different districts handle that differently too, because I know I have worked at districts where notes have gone home before. And I don't know if that's changed over the years as HIPAA's changed, but that is a district, I think, decision there. Right, and I believe the understanding under, and what I believe the understanding is that it is not, and again, this is a school's policy too, but it is not a health concern if a nuisance is rewarding that would share with me prior. And trust me, I completely understand being a parent of kids in the elementary, I would prefer to know, obviously, but don't necessarily, like you said, I don't need to know a name, I just would prefer to know. And I think that all goes like Kathy said, that's the thing down here, so it's a policy. And a good person to ask about that would be- I think it's a genius to have a group for administration. We have another question from the floor. There's about three of them there. Okay, well, it looks like it's three o'clock, so I just wanna say thank you all for joining us. Please make sure that you did register today so we know you were with us. That helps us count our numbers, and we just look forward to you seeing you next time, but feel free to email us any questions you may have in between. And thank you, Kathy, so much for your expertise, and you're a senior. No problem, thanks, everybody. Have a good afternoon, and a round of applause. Thank you, Kathy. Thanks, everyone. I think I can assume she's gonna still be here again. Wait, you guys can do this, too? Sure, I can. You know, once you watch, don't watch every time. I mean, you have to register first. Oh, you do? Yeah. Oh, pretty tight.