Eight years ago, the South Whidbey School District violated a federal law meant to safeguard the privacy of students.

Coupeville resident Mark Helpenstell addressed the school board last week, alerting them to the violation and offering a scathing commentary about how children with special learning requirements are treated in the district.

The posting of student information was a mistake that was corrected long ago, according to the school district.

Helpenstell made a complaint under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act to the U.S. Department of Education in 2015 and finally got an answer, along with an apology for the extended delay, in 2022. He said he was thinking about addressing the school board since receiving the letter and finally decided to do so last week.

“This ruling took seven years and thousands of dollars in legal fees to reach,” he said. “It certainly did nothing to help our child while in the school district, but was important to see it through to the end and hold (Superintendent) Jo Moccia accountable.”

The school district had a policy of posting requests for documents made under the Public Records Act on its website. Helpenstell made a request for documents related to his child’s education records and the district posted his request, which included his name. He argued that the posting violated the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA, because a reasonable person could be able to identify the student and the posting disclosed sensitive facts.

The letter from the Department of Education states that the district denied it violated the privacy law but changed its policy on its own.

In the end, however, the Department of Education concluded that the district had, in fact, violated FERPA. The department noted that requests from parents about student information should not be treated as records requests under state Public Records Act but as FERPA requests. The letter notes that the district fixed the problem, and the department closed the complaint.

In an email, Moccia said the district made a mistake in 2015 when it posted all records requests on its website. She said the district corrected the error, engaged in training and now has a public records manager.

Helpenstell, however, blames Moccia and believes it was a retaliatory action to punish his family for petitioning for services his child was entitled to receive.

“Her actions literally pushed students with special learning requirements out of the system, which allowed her to raise her testing scores with the state,” he said.

Kristina Macarro, the district director of communications and public records specialist, explained in an email that requests made by parents under FERPA “are private from start to finish.” In addition, other records requests that have information concerning a student are redacted to protect student identifying information.

Since the fall of 2021, the district has used the Next Request system to handle records requests online. The requests themselves are automatically listed online, but requests with students records “are kept restricted to the requester and the district,” according to Macarro.