New JERSEY PEACE ACTION MEETS WITH AIDE TO GOVERNOR CORZINE
SIGN THEIR PETITION TO GOVERNOR CORZINE!
Thursday, May 31, 2007
On Thursday, May 31, 2007, five representatives of New Jersey Peace Action – director Madelyn Hoffman, two high school students and two adult counter-recruitment activists – met with an aide to Governor Jon Corzine to discuss implementing a uniform statewide policy to protect students’ privacy by allowing high school students to opt-out of having their personal information released to military recruiters under the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, and by ensuring that all students are equally informed about their rights under the law. The meeting was highly productive, and according to a spokesman for the Governor, the opt-out policy is now under official review.
Maggie Astor, a senior at Montclair High School and NJPA’s Counter-Recruitment Coordinator, organized and spearheaded preparations for the meeting, from sending an official meeting request to the Governor’s office to contacting people to attend to putting together materials. Five people attended the meeting: Astor; Jessie White, a freshman at Bloomfield High School; Madelyn Hoffman, director of NJPA; Tina Weishaus, counter-recruitment activist and former PTSO member from Highland Park; and Allison Inserro, a parent who lobbied to change the opt-out policy in Metuchen. They met with Janellen Duffy, policy advisor to Governor Corzine, and provided her with a packet of information on the issue. In addition to the people at the meeting, six other high schools and over a hundred towns were represented among those who helped to organize the meeting and collect postcards and signatures.
The meeting was extremely positive and productive. Astor gave the background on the situation and described the policy we want the Governor to pursue. Then each attendee explained the opt-out policy in a different town: Montclair, Bloomfield, Plainfield, Highland Park and Metuchen. Montclair has an excellent policy, upon which an ideal statewide policy would be based: opt-out forms are sent to the families of every high school student along with medical and other registration forms in August. Students must return the forms, either consenting or not consenting to having their information released to military recruiters, in order to receive their schedules and begin the school year. As a result, Montclair High School has an extremely high response rate: 98 percent of students returned the forms the first year the policy was in place, and of those, over 90 percent opted out of having their information released to the military!
Highland Park has a similar policy to Montclair, although its response rate is not quite as high. Bloomfield, Plainfield and Metuchen, however, have distinctly sub-par policies. Bloomfield and Plainfield mail opt-out forms to families, but do not follow up or require that the forms be returned. Additionally, the forms do not provide the information necessary for families to make an informed decision. As a result, their response rates are 46 percent and 13 percent, respectively. Metuchen does not even mail the forms to families; instead, they bury the information at the bottom of the last page of a school newsletter. As evidence of the inadequacy of this policy, even a state legislator reportedly did not see the information in the newsletter!
Duffy responded enthusiastically, mentioning first of all how impressed she was with the number of postcards and signatures we had collected. We had a brainstorming session, in which we discussed ways Governor Corzine could help to achieve a uniform policy, from issuing an executive order to pressuring the New Jersey Board of Education. In 2005, NJPA, in collaboration with a statewide coalition on military counter-recruitment led by the Central Jersey Coalition Against Endless War and Montclair High students from the group OYE OYE (Open Your Eyes, Organized Youth Educators), testified before the state Board of Education to request a change in policy or a hearing solely on the issue. We were told the Board had a cycle by which they addressed issues; that the review of the opt-out issue had just been finished, and another would not occur until 2010. In effect, the Board refused to take action. However, there is precedent for the Board to deviate from its usual schedule and address an issue immediately upon pressure from the Governor, and Janellen Duffy informed us at the meeting that such action was a possibility.
Duffy also informed us that as a United States Senator, Corzine lobbied the Department of Defense to place a link on its website to a uniform opt-out form, which could then be used by individual school districts to ease the process of mailing forms to all families. This action is entirely in accordance with our goals, and boosts our confidence that the Governor will take action to achieve a uniform statewide policy that would inform all students of their rights.
At the conclusion of the meeting, Maggie Astor was designated the official liaison between New Jersey Peace Action and the Governor’s office on the issue. Shortly after the meeting, she sent Janellen a list of links to information on similar movements and policies in other states.
The meeting was written up above the fold on the front page of the Herald News on Friday, June 1. The writer, Heather Haddon, contacted the Governor’s office, and was told by Brendan Gilfillan, a spokesman for Governor Corzine, that the opt-out policy was now under official review, and that the office was soliciting “opinions from concerned residents.” A follow-up letter to the editor, written by a member of NJPA from Passaic County, was printed shortly thereafter. Additionally, an article by Phil Garber appeared in the Mount Olive Chronicle on Friday, June 8, 2007. It revealed that the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) is on our side as well, and wants to get involved in the movement to establish a uniform statewide opt-out policy. The article can be found at http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=18432340&BRD=1918&PAG=461&dept_id=506840&rfi=6.
The meeting was the culmination of months of work on a postcard campaign, launched at NJPA’s 49th annual Fall Soup Luncheon in November 2006. Nearly 400 people signed postcards urging the Governor to adopt a uniform opt-out policy. Half of these postcards were delivered in person at the meeting, along with nearly 100 signatures from an online petition, launched only two days before. And while the response of the Governor’s office was highly encouraging, NJPA will continue to collect signatures until a uniform policy is established. The online petition can be signed at www.petitiononline.com/nclbpriv/petition.html, and postcards can be obtained by calling the NJPA office at (973) 744-3263 or by e-mailing Maggie at crcoordinator@gmail.com. We will not stop the pressure until a uniform policy is actually in place!
