Clause 30.

Agreed.

---Agreed

Clause 31. Sorry, I missed somebody. Clause 30. Mrs. Marie-Jewell.

Mr. Chairman, could I ask the consent of the committee to go back to clause 29?

The Member would like to go back to 29. Is that okay?

Agreed.

---Agreed

Okay, we are on 29, then. Mrs. Marie-Jewell.

MRS, MARIE-JEWELL: Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to make a couple of comments with respect to this clause.

The wording in it is pretty specific. Clause 29(2) indicates, "a student record shall include information that affects decisions made about the education of a student that is collected or maintained by the school or an education body and a record of those decisions and any other prescribed information."

First of all, they maintain student records for each student that is registered at any school. Now, I am concerned, and it didn't seem to be clear during the meeting with the Minister, that if information is obtained --for example, if your child requires psychological assessment or if you, as a parent, decide to take your child out for psychological assessment --and you do not want these records to be for school use but only for parental use, can the school, under this particular clause, have access to those types of records, because of the fact that it could have some effect either on the child's behaviour or determine the child's progress in the school or whatever? I just want to know if a principal somewhat demanded those types of records from a parent, either going through the medical centre or going through the parent, is there an obligation on behalf of the parent to provide those for the student records for school purposes? Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Marie-Jewell. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I can advise the honourable Member, having discussed this particular matter with legal counsel, that information would not be a matter that could be required, requested or obligated to be part of the information. In other words, that is a private matter. The parent may choose to provide the information but if they do not, there is no requirement that information be available to the school for placement on a student record, because that includes the whole matter of medical information. Records and information are protected by other pieces of legislation and they are not matters that could be included, unless again there are medical circumstances that a parent wishes to provide to the school. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Nerysoo. Mrs. Marie-Jewell.

Yes, Mr. Chairman, I just wanted that clarification for the record to ensure that this clause is, in fact, interpreted in that manner. I don't want to have irate parents, who may want to take the responsibility personally to get their child assessed, feel in any way intimidated by the school system to have to produce those records for their child's records with regard to determining progress of a child or whatever. So I felt it was fairly important to get that clarification with respect to that particular clause. Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Marie-Jewell. You don't have anything else on clause 29? Okay. Can we conclude clause 29 then?

Agreed.

---Agreed

Clause 30. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Nerysoo.

This is the exception to the other components, section 30(1), (2) and (3). This is the exception where you deal with things like potential abuse, sexual or physical, where the parents may not wish to provide that information, and there may be other personal information that the parents may not want to expose but that the student might want. The other thing is that the teacher, as a result of discussions with the student, may have information that the parent would not want to disclose.

So that was the intention of the exception here to the other information above, those circumstances where I'm not certain if a parent would deal with or want to disclose, particularly where it says, "in the best interest of a student".

Thank you, Mr. Nerysoo. Mr. Dent.

Thank you. Mr. Nerysoo.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There are two specific issues: one dealing with information that is necessary to address the best interests of the student and; secondly, that disclosure is necessary for the establishment of support services. So it's very specific about the basis on which that information can be released.

Thank you, Mr. Nerysoo. Anybody else on clause 30? Are we concluded clause 30?

Agreed.

---Agreed

Clause 31.