Student records, equipment left in Hyattsville school being demolished

Student records, equipment left in Hyattsville school being demolished

Late last month, a group of Hyattsville Elementary School parents walked into the building that was scheduled for demolition. They were there to retrieve items in the teacher’s lounge purchased by the parent-teacher association and uniforms left over from the school’s clothing closet.

But as they walked into the building, they were stunned to discover an unsecured room containing binders full of private records about students, including financial information and emergency contacts. They also found classrooms filled with thousands of dollars’ worth of school equipment and supplies such as gym mats, library books, microscopes and musical instruments that they were told would be thrown out by the end of the day.

“So much of it wasn’t brand new by any means, but was still in such usable condition,” said Sara Bendoraitis, a parent of a rising fourth-grader who was among the group helping clear out the clothing closet. “It was just a huge amount of waste that was going to happen.”

Hyattsville Elementary is one of 11 schools in the Prince George’s County district that are being demolished as part of a major construction blitz, with eight campuses being built by 2028 through a public-private partnership.

The parents’ discovery of records and leftover supplies sparked questions on how often such expensive equipment and reusable school materials are left behind during construction projects — and whether administrators made appropriate efforts to protect student privacy.

Lynn McCawley, a spokeswoman for Prince George’s County Public Schools, said Friday that the parents entered the building in the middle of the move and saw some equipment that was still expected to be relocated to a warehouse. McCawley said the school system later retrieved copiers, kilns for art classes, music and kitchen equipment, while some old furniture was thrown out.

A group of parents initially went to the school in June to clear out items in a teacher’s lounge that had been purchased by the parent-teacher association. Once inside, they also spotted several boxes set to be picked up for the district. Bendoraitis said movers told the parents they would remove what they could that day, and remaining materials would be thrown out.

Later that Friday afternoon, after the movers had left, parents found several boxes filled with school equipment. They asked the school’s vice principals about some of the items, but were told they were trash, Bendoraitis recalled. The following Monday, parents met with school administration to learn how much more time they’d have to clear out the teacher’s lounge and clothing closet before the building would be handed over to a contractor. Administrators said the keys would be transferred at noon that day, Bendoraitis said.

The parents scrambled to fit as many items in their cars as possible, moving back and forth between the elementary school and a storage unit. While they initially only planned to stow uniforms and other clothing, parents now were also grabbing some school supplies.

“We were really concerned at that point of like, ‘How can we possibly get as much out of the school as we can, knowing that there’s five of us and whatever cars we can grab?’” she said.

Parents say they discovered classrooms filled with reusable school supplies and materials.

A group of Hyattsville Elementary parents found leftover gym mats in the building in late June.

Bendoraitis said the parents are still itemizing the supplies and clothing they retrieved, and had not received further updates from the district.

Parents also found a storage room with binders full of papers containing student records, including details of students’ financial information, family physicians and emergency contacts, according to documentation reviewed by The Washington Post. The parents were concerned that the administrators’ failure to properly remove the records violated the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act, a federal law designed to shield students’ personal information from public view.

Matthew Humbard, a parent of a rising fifth-grader who learned of the records’ discovery from a friend, said he was unsettled because contractors not trained in student privacy laws also had access to the room. He feared his family’s personal information may have been shared.

Humbard said he already thought the leftover school equipment was “wildly mishandled,” but “it’s the FERPA stuff that really pissed me off.”

“Our financial records are in there someplace,” he said. “Why wouldn’t they dispose of them? Why wouldn’t they shred them?”

McCawley, the district spokesperson, said school staff received guidance from the Office of Student Records on how to secure, relocate and archive documentation involving students. She didn’t specify what that guidance entailed.

LeRoy Rooker, a senior fellow at the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, said the failure to remove the information was a clear violation of the law, since it’s “an unauthorized disclosure of multiple student education records.” He added that FERPA isn’t prescriptive on how such information should be destroyed, but it is explicit about ensuring the information isn’t easily accessible to people beyond school administrators and a child’s parents or guardians.

“[The parents] should be upset about it,” said Rooker, who led the U.S. Education Department’s Family Policy Compliance Office for more than two decades. “That school should never have left those in an unsecured place of a building that’s going to be torn down.”