The administration has to make decisions on a daily basis. It’s kind of their job.
A lot of these decisions are unpopular with the student body. One such decision was the decision to take teachers’ names off of the schedules in the 2010-2011 school year. The students experienced a period of rather painful withdrawal, gradually settling into a grumbling acceptance. When Infinite Campus leaked complete schedules this year, though, students relapsed back into their addiction: they craved more.
In all the craze, however, the focus was understandably on the information leaked, but not on the implications of such a leak. Since administration took it down within 20 hours, they clearly did not intend for students to see the schedules. The availability of the schedules brings into question the security of all other information administration needs to protect.
Those who claim a conspiracy in shielding this information should consider the types of information that they typically “hide.” Information that the school is entitled to keep out of the public eye includes private medical records, personnel files (about teachers’ records and evaluations), disciplinary cases, permanent records and individuals’ academic issues — all things that should be kept private.
We should respect the administration’s decision to keep schedules private, as they have their own reasons. Whether or not students agree, it is a matter that has undergone much debate, as does each decision administration makes. If not their decision, we can at least accept the process and focus on more important things: the accidental security breach.
Today, it is a schedule leak. Tomorrow, anything from one student’s embarrassing medical condition to another’s family difficulties to a staff member’s legal history will be available to the student population. It could be anyone. It could be you.
We all complain about the lack of privacy, so maintaining privacy begins here. It’s not censorship — it’s protection of classified information. If the administration wishes to maintain the security of protected information that they have built up, they would do well to remember that our defenses are only as strong as our weakest point.
Accidents happen. But we learn from mistakes such as these, and students should not expect to get such a preview again— the administration will make sure of that. We should simply accept the fact that our teacher-viewing days are over. It was fun while it lasted.
