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State superintendent candidate Joy Hofmeister issued a public call Thursday for an investigation into reported violations of federally protected student information by incumbent Janet Barresi.
Hofmeister said federal officials should investigate because Barresi had full knowledge of privacy violations involving the student records of high school seniors who applied for waivers to new high-stakes testing requirements and because she has acknowledged her campaign used the contact information of special education students receiving the Lindsey Nicole Henry Scholarships to private schools.
“Janet Barresi has repeatedly violated the privacy of Oklahoma schoolchildren. She has posted their private academic records and personal information on the State Department of Education website. There are multiple state and federal laws prohibiting this sort of behavior,” Hofmeister said.
Robyn Matthews, Barresi’s campaign manager called the allegations “nothing new” and said, “This is yet another example of Joy Hofmeister trying to use taxpayer resources for her own campaign advancement.”
The mother of a special-needs student told the Tulsa World last week that Barresi violated the privacy rights of her child and others receiving state-funded scholarships to private schools by providing their names and home addresses to her campaign for re-election.
The woman, whose name the Tulsa World agreed to not use to protect her daughter, said that in March 2012, her then-seventh-grader received an envelope in the mail from Barresi’s campaign.
Inside was a letter signed by Barresi to scholarship parents offering up to four tickets to an Oklahoma City Thunder basketball game, plus T-shirts, and an opportunity to shoot baskets and high-five the players as they entered the court.
The woman said the scholarship recipients’ names and home addresses could have been obtained only from the state Department of Education and that their release to a third party like Barresi’s campaign is a violation of the students’ privacy rights under the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act and Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
A spokesman for the Oklahoma State Department of Education said former general counsel Lisa Endres and former events coordinator Ashley Hahn had mistakenly sent the invitations in campaign envelopes rather than Education Department envelopes, and that they had done so after hours.
“These are egregious failures of which Janet Barresi is desperate to conceal while she continues to use her personal fortune to smear my name,” Hofmeister said. “Barresi’s conduct is a pattern of abuse that I witnessed during my appointment to the State Board of Education and is one of the reasons why I am compelled to run against her.
“Superintendent Barresi’s gross violations of state and federal privacy laws need to be fully investigated.”
The race for state superintendent is the most hotly contested election in the June 24 primary, and the GOP race has become increasingly hostile since a debate last week hosted by the Tulsa 912 Project.
On Wednesday, Barresi’s re-election campaign charged that Hofmeister broke the law by sending campaign-related emails to school district administrators on their public school email accounts in the spring of 2013.
Barresi’s campaign manager made the allegations in a report by The Oklahoman newspaper in Oklahoma City.
The allegations coincided with the airing of Barresi’s new campaign television ad, which states: “Hofmeister conspired with school bureaucrats to use our tax dollars to plot her political campaign. That’s right: Secret emails prove Hofmeister used our tax dollars for her campaign.”
Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater told The Oklahoman on Wednesday that he is reviewing Matthews’ allegations about Hofmeister emails, as well as other allegations made against U.S. Senate candidate T.W. Shannon “for potential criminal conduct.”
