BOTHELL, Wash. — A lunchtime presentation at Bothell High School has drawn a lot of controversy.
According to the Northshore School District, this happened on Wednesday when a student-led group called Ignite asked a local preacher to speak during lunch hour.
Students were offered free pizza at this event but there was a catch; they had to scan a QR code that was on a flyer and give out personal information.
News of this event has many parents commenting online and voicing their concerns about students’ personal information.
KIRO7 obtained an email that was sent out to students, parents, and staff by Principal Juan Price on what happened at the lunch presentation.
In the email, he says the school is investigating to see how many students scanned the QR code and gave out their personal info on school grounds.
He says if they find that this situation does violate FERPA, they will ask for the student information by destroyed.
One Senior told KIRO7 they believe the school is responding in the right way to what happened.
“Their job is to protect the students and like make sure they’re safe. So, I feel like them advocating for the protection of their students over whatever this was, I feel like that’s better,” Richie, a senior at Bothell High, said.
The district also sent this statement in response to what happened earlier in the week:
The District takes student privacy and data stewardship very seriously. We have policies and procedures that govern the collection, use, and distribution of student data. How Bothell High School students’ personal information was collected during the event is not permitted. We will be working to ensure the data gathered during the student-initiated event is destroyed and will take steps to ensure this doesn’t happen again. - Carri Campbell, Executive Director of Communications Northshore School District
On June 10, KIRO 7 was told the Bothell High School principal and their Executive Director of Technology were in contact with the pastor. According to the Northshore School District, the pastor will destroy the student data and attest that he had done so.