NEWPORT — At first, Forrest Ransdell, superintendent of the Newport School District, didn’t see anything particularly new in the technical advisory that the New Hampshire Department of Education sent out on Dec. 15.
What the advisory says, in brief, is that schools need to get permission from parents to make audio or visual recordings of students. Previous exceptions to this rule have been superseded by the state’s new Parental Bill of Rights.
Reading it more closely last week, Ransdell decided that the district needed to put in place a process for parents to opt in. “I don’t want us to run afoul of the regulations in the innocent process of providing activities for kids,” he said.
In the meantime, he reached out last Friday to NCTV, the public access station that records school events, and asked it to hold off on filming school sporting events until school officials could secure permission forms from parents.
The events in Newport fall into a gray area in the new law, but school officials across the state are weighing how to respond to the DOE’s advisory. While getting permission for recording has been part of federal law in some form since the 1970s, the Parental Bill of Rights is more restrictive and puts schools in new legal jeopardy.
“Under the statute,” the advisory says, “any parent claiming violation of this (or any other provision in this statute) may bring an action for declaratory or injunctive relief, or both, and monetary damages against the school.”
Under the law, which went into effect in July, schools can now make a video or voice recording of a student without parental consent only if the recording is “made during or as part of a court proceeding or part of a forensic interview in a criminal or other investigation by the bureau of child protective services or it is to be used solely for the purpose of a safety demonstration, including the maintenance of order and discipline in the common areas of a school or on student transportation vehicles.”
School boards and administrators, the advisory says, should examine their policies and “determine whether the preferred course is to cease the use of audio or video recording for curricular purposes or whether best practices is to continue the use of recordings and to obtain parental consent for appropriate curriculum-based activities.”
When the advisory reached school districts, many were holding holiday concerts, and school superintendents reached out to the New Hampshire School Boards Association for advice on whether the concerts could be filmed, Barrett Christina, the association’s executive director, said Thursday.
The association’s advice to school districts, given the possible legal ramifications, is to get parental permission for any recording that does not satisfy one of the exemptions in the law. So any musical or theatrical performance or rehearsal, any demonstration of a skill in technical education, any general classroom activities, require parental permission for recording, the association wrote in a bulletin to school districts about the state’s advisory.
The NHSBA advice says nothing about recording sporting events. Newport’s confusion raises questions about whether an outside entity, such as a local cable access channel, can film school activities.
NCTV, Newport’s cable access channel, is an independent nonprofit that derives its funding from franchise fees. But it is housed in a school district building.
“Our basic mandate is to record town and school business,” John Lunn, who has served as executive director of NCTV for eight years, said in an interview. “My interpretation is we’re doing it on behalf of them.”
The relationship between the school district and the TV station is a key factor. If they have some sort of contract or formal agreement, that might put the station under the umbrella of the school’s authority, and make it subject to the state law, Christina said. If the station is independent, it could record a game just like a private citizen could.
When Ransdell reached out to him last week and asked him not to film school sports until coaches could secure permission forms, Lunn complied. The practical effect has been nil, as the only scheduled games have been canceled because of bad weather.
NCTV has been on the air since 1994 and Lunn, a former Newport Selectboard member, made an effort to broadcast more high school games when he started at the station. Football, basketball and field hockey are the main events, he said. The soccer field is too far from the fiber-optic cable Lunn laid down to reach the football field.
Any given basketball game can get 300 to 400 viewers online, Lunn said, and the games are watchable through video-on-demand later.
Both Ransdell and Christina noted that if someone wants to see a game, they can attend it in person. But the school’s Wheeler Gym is small, Lunn said, and not everyone who wants to see a game is able to attend.
The school district’s plan is to get permission forms signed, and Ransdell said parents are sending them in. NCTV broadcasts of sporting events should resume.
“I anticipate that here in the next several days we’re going to be back to usual,” he said Wednesday afternoon.
But if the school can’t get 100% acceptance, officials might choose not to allow any recording or broadcast, he said.
Press coverage of games would not be affected, as media outlets are independent of the school, he said.
Lunn said Wednesday that he hopes for some resolution by the end of the week. The Monadnock boys basketball team is slated to come to Newport, and he wants to broadcast the game.
“There are people who can’t make it to the gym and they rely on it,” Lunn said.