After confusion arose surrounding what can and can’t be recorded by schools, including sports games, legislators got to work to amend the law to add some clarity to the parental bill of rights.
Concord High School senior Travis Dunbar is a member of the football and track teams and enrolled in the CRTC Construction Trades program.
He told state senators this week that in sports, audio and video recordings are essential for game film study and for sending clips to colleges. For his trades program, documenting progress is critical to completing assignments.
“We use many videos and photos in CRTC to help share our progress throughout learning the trades,” Dunbar said. “And as an athlete, we also use photos and videos to analyze technique that helps prevent injury, helps promote our athletic success.”
“This portion of the parental bills is neglecting that,” he added.
Senator Timothy Lang Sr. introduced an amendment to the bill that removed the need for written parental consent for schools to make audio and video recordings as part of required assessments or school-sponsored events that are open to the general public.
At the start of the school year, Merrimack Valley decided it would suspend all audio and video recordings, a student’s online broadcast of games, as it tried to comply with the law.
Earlier this school year, Concord interim superintendent Tim Herbert sent a notice to parents announcing a pause of all audio and video recordings, including livestreams of sporting events, as the district determines how to meet state requirements.
Herbert testified Thursday that the current law made it difficult to decide how to handle recordings.
He listed examples of how the bill had hindered regular operations at all levels of schooling in the district. As a parent himself, he said he appreciated the need for transparency in school recordings, but he also recognized how it limited schools.
At the elementary level, students used audio recording for speaking and reading fluency. In middle school, internal student broadcasts about local weather news based on what they learned in science class were paused. Digital learning portfolios were under consideration for high school students as a graduation requirement and put on hold.
“But I just ask to consider the scope of this and the impact on the educational learning, creativity and innovation of students in the classroom,” he said.
The amendment was packaged alongside another amendment related to open enrollment tuition costs and passed on the Senate floor on Thursday, Jan. 29. It will be scheduled to move to the House later this year.