Recruiters set to collect
isle students’ data

No Child Left Behind allows
the military to get contact
information unless parents
opt out

Don't be surprised if your high school junior or senior gets a call at home from a military recruiter, even if your phone number is unlisted.

To get off the list To keep student contact information from being released to military recruiters, fill out a "Non-Disclosure of Directory Information (Opt Out)" form at your school office or submit your own written request. The opt-out forms were due within 10 working days of receipt of the "Notification of Rights for Elementary and Secondary Schools," sent home with students by Sept. 7. But schools are still accepting them. The deadline for schools to submit the contact information to the Department of Education for this school year is Friday.

Unless you have stopped by your school office to fill out an "opt-out" form, contact information for teenagers in public schools is being collected this month to be turned over to U.S. military recruiters in October.

A little-known provision of the No Child Left Behind Act allows the military to request the names, addresses and phone numbers of secondary students in schools that receive public funds. The Hawaii Department of Education is gathering information on students as young as sixth grade.

"In the past, the Interservice Recruitment Council has asked only for grades 11 and 12," said Greg Knudsen, spokesman for the Department of Education. "Last year, they did ask for grade 10 for the first time."

The military's policy is to contact students only at age 17 and up, according to Douglas Smith, spokesman for the U.S. Army Recruiting Command in Fort Knox, Ky. Students can enlist at 17, with parental permission, on a delayed-entry program until they graduate.

At a time when the armed forces are struggling to meet enlistment goals, the ability to make personal contact with high school juniors and seniors is a crucial tool for recruiters, he said.

"Recruiters have to talk to a lot of people to find those young men and women who are interested enough to make an appointment to learn more about the Army," Smith said. "It takes several hundred contacts by a recruiter to get somebody who will make it all the way through the process and finally enlist."

Smith added: "I'm old enough to have lived through the draft era. It is an element of the all-volunteer force that we have to be out in the community actively seeking people to enlist."

In Hawaii, notice that information is released to military recruiters appears on the third page of a densely worded form, "Notification of Rights for Elementary and Secondary Students," that was sent home with students after school started. Parents who want to withhold contact numbers must pick up "Non-Disclosure of Directory Information (Opt Out)" forms at school or write their own letter.

"You have to read the small print," said Don Hayman, president of the Hawaii State Parent-Teacher-Student Association, which has received several calls from concerned parents and is trying to inform people through its Web site. "I think the Department of Education hasn't really done a good job of publicizing that, because it seems the parents are caught off guard when they find out about it."

Families have 10 working days upon receipt of the first "Notification" form to file a written request with the school to withhold the information. But schools are still accepting opt-out forms. The deadline for secondary schools to turn over contact information to the state DOE is Friday.

Last year, roughly 5 percent of high school students opted out, Knudsen said. That was 2,635 students out of a total enrollment of 54,473 in grades nine through 12. Whether the remainder chose to have the information released or didn't bother to read the form carefully is not clear.

"I'm sure parents aren't aware of it at all," said Peggy McArdle, mother of a freshman at Kealakehe High School on the Big Island, who opted out.

"They put the burden on us to take the name off. It should be the other way around; they should be asking for permission to release it, instead of us having to hunt down the form every year," she said. "Most people aren't going to fill it out. They're too busy or they don't read it."

Smith said most high schools were already providing student information to recruiters before the No Child Left Behind Act took effect in 2002, and the law just helped reach those schools that withheld their lists.

He also noted that even parents who have opted out under No Child Left Behind may still get calls from recruiters because commercial vendors sell lists compiled from sources such as high school senior ring vendors and driver's license registrations.

A national "Leave My Child Alone" campaign has sprung up in response, and groups such as the American Friends Service Committee are working in Hawaii to raise awareness of student privacy rights.