Why Won’t They Tell Me? Student ConfidentialityBy Julie Incitti, Student Services/Prevention and Wellness Team and Michelle Silverman, Special Education Team, DPIYou are the principal or director in a school or district, and you are responsible for the learning and welfare of all the students in your school. You need to know important information about students to keep them safe and on track for graduation. However, there are times when you ask for information you believe your staff have, and yet they will not tell you. As frustrating as this can be, it helps to understand why this happens and what to do when you need more information than your staff is giving you. In addition to board policies, and state and federal pupil records laws, some professionals in the school adhere to a professional code of ethics governing the confidentiality of disclosures. These codes have similar language relating to a promise to the client/student that any information they share will be maintained as confidential unless there is an actual or imminent threat of harm to self or others. For example, a school social worker learns details about a student and family’s lives as they conduct a social developmental history for a special education evaluation. As a professional, they need to determine how much of that information is relevant to understanding the student’s learning and development and the impacts on special education eligibility and services. The code of ethics instructs the professional to obtain consent from the parent and assent from a minor student about the information they ultimately disclose to the IEP team. This consent to disclose information is in addition to the general consent for the evaluation. Some information they have learned about the family will be omitted from the report and not shared with others. When determining which information to share with others, related service providers may consider such questions as:
For example, a principal may feel they need to know a student’s diagnoses and medication information to best support them. However, a diagnosis will impact different students differently and it does not tell us the student’s strengths or needs. Knowing the medication or dosage is irrelevant if we do not understand how that medication affects the student or the proper dosage for that student. Instead, it is helpful to know that the student may have difficulty transitioning between activities due to difficulty focusing their attention on any one task, and would benefit from skill development in organization, focus, and a visual schedule. Another example would be knowing that a student had a difficult night due to family conflict, and that they could use some extra time and care the next day. This is as opposed to knowing the student was up all night due to domestic violence in the family and getting all the details. Before asking for details, ask yourself, how will knowing these details change the way I support this student? Since personal judgement is involved in making decisions about confidentiality, there may be times when a professional is not disclosing information that you truly need to know, and perhaps objectively should be shared with you. In these times, it can be helpful to provide more context to the professional such as, “Knowing that a student has seen you for counseling support is important. We need to track our services provided to understand and improve our overall service delivery model. We need to know where students are physically located for attendance and safety reasons. Let’s work together to develop a process that best maintains a student’s confidentiality while providing us with data we need.” Another helpful approach can be to seek more information from the professional such as in this example, “I support you in maintaining confidentiality per your code of ethics. I also need this information to do my job and best support the student. In this situation, I’m not understanding why this information couldn’t be shared with me. Could you share more of your thoughts on that?”, and “Would it be appropriate to ask the student (or parent) if they would consent to disclosing that information to me? Perhaps in this case they could understand why disclosure could be helpful and would authorize it themselves.” As a school leader, you could model respect for confidentiality by not pressing for unneeded details and by questioning staff who do. When professional staff feel there is due regard for their code of ethics and upholding confidentiality, collegial relationships improve, and students' privacy is better maintained. Additional Helpful Resources: |