Representative Amy Perruso is introducing a House resolution on behalf of Hawaii’s Journalism Education Association director.

The resolution requests the DOE revise the current Student Publication/Audio/Video Release Form-General to remove any language that would lead a reasonable person to assume the Form applies to school-sponsored student-produced media because

• FERPA only restricts the release of information by school officials; outside parties, including student journalists, who are neither employees nor agents of the school are not covered by FERPA; and
• minors can give consent as long as they are cognitively able to understand what it means to talk to a journalist; and
• applying FERPA to student media is unnecessarily placing prior constraint on student journalists, which the Hawaii Student Journalism Protection Act disallows.

These reasons are supported by the DOE-sponsored webinars to educate student journalists, their advisers, and administrators about their rights and responsibilities, which can be found here.

Scholastic journalism advocates can support this resolution by:

1. Completing this Google Form (public school advisers only)

2. Contacting the representatives of where you live or for your school and ask them to sign the resolution.

3. Once the resolution gets assigned to a committee, contact the chair of the committee and ask that they hear the resolution.

4. Once the resolution gets on a hearing agenda, support this resolution with written, virtual, or in-person testimony .

• Tell the legislators how many students at your school have NOT returned the Student Publication Release Form. At McKinley that number is 400!
• Tell the legislators how student journalists make sure anyone they interview understands what it means to speak to a journalist.
• Tell the legislators that student journalists abide by the SJP Code of Ethics and if they think the student should inform their parents before something is published, student journalists ask the student to provide evidence of that because student journalists want to MINIMIZE HARM.
• Students who are not journalists could testify that they feel their freedom of speech is being violated if the school requires parental consent before allowing them to be included in student-produced media.

Please reach out to [email protected] if you have questions.