I've long wondered why video or audio that is recorded at the school board meetings must be edited for names, first when anyone in the world who attends those meetings can bring an audio recorder or video camera or camera and publicly display such end results. I'm listening to the audio from the recent Nov 22 2010 meeting and, where some kids won awards, their names are edited out. But if I were to go to that meeting and record on video, the entire video, including names, would be on Youtube. If a newspaper showed up and took a photo to put in the paper, would the reporter have to go ask each child if he or she had signed a permission slip for the school first? Of course not... because these actions occur in public.

FERPA law requires that school districts be scrupulous about maintaining privacy of student records in education. But public meetings at a school board where Texas Open Meetings Act allows for recording don't have anything to do with directory information. It seems silly to me that GRISD must edit audio or video, at additional time and expense, for a public meeting. For example, when I record a meeting, I can send out the audio separately from the video and it takes about 5 minutes from the time to strip it to the time it's available on the internet.  I'm sure GRISD would like to put out the audio right away after a meeting, but must take time to check it to blank out student names. Where does any penalty come from? It can't be from TOMA, so is it FERPA that is requiring this type of action in contravention of common sense?

I wonder if this is something all school boards in Texas do?