My kids’ daycare sends home flyers every so often advertising this program or that that our kids can participate in beyond what the normal tuition fee covers – pull-out classes for music, gymnastics; that sort of thing. The other day a flyer came home advertising a dance class. There was nothing unusual about it, but as I scanned the legalese at the bottom (as I always do), the last line popped out at me:
I…release any photos taken of my child in class to be used for <company name> media outlets.
I didn’t see an opt-out checkbox for parents who don’t want their kids’ pictures being taken and put on flyers, pamphlets, or worse – THE INTERNET. It was just, “if you want to participate, this is how we do”.
I understand that’s a slippery slope to head down, but my question is less legal than philosophical in nature – what happens between the pre-K level, where this is an accepted practice (and presumably unchallenged, though I can’t be sure) and the K-12 level, where most of us are dealing with hysteria regarding publishing student work (including pictures) online? It’s OK for our kids to unwittingly advertise for corporations but not to promote their own work & interests?
This is certainly an issue my school building is struggling with right now. At this point, parents sign a photo release which permits us to release things to the newspaper…. which means it is on the web, and even on Facebook since our local paper posts there as well. In essence, that photo release allows us to put a student image, full name, grade and school on the web. And when I want to create student digital portfolio’s, there are many concerns about ‘safety’ and someone being able to ‘find’ a student because it has their first name and school name. Uhmmmmm….. don’t we release waaaaay more than that already???
.-= Julie Cunningham´s last blog ..Blabberize the Blubber =-.