C.N. v. Ridgewood Bd. of Educ.
| Decision Date | 01 December 2005 |
| Docket Number | No. 04-2849.,04-2849. |
| Citation | 430 F.3d 159 |
| Parties | C.N., Individually and as Guardian Ad Litem of J.N., a Minor; L.M., Individually and as Guardian Ad Litem of V.M., a Minor; M.E., Individually and as Guardian Ad Litem of J.E., a Minor, Appellants v. RIDGEWOOD BOARD OF EDUCATION; Frederick J. Stokley; Joyce Snider; Ronald Verdicchio; Robert Weakley; John Mucciolo; Anthony Bencivenga; Sheila Brogan. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit |
F. Michael Daily, Jr. (Argued), Westmont, NJ, for Appellants.
David B. Rubin (Argued), Metuchen, NJ, for Appellees.
Andrew L. Schlafly, New York, NY, for Amicus-Appellant, Eagle Forum Education & Legal Defense Fund.
Cynthia J. Jahn, New Jersey School Board Association, Trenton, NJ, for Amicus-Appellee, New Jersey School Board Association.
Julie Underwood, National School Boards Association, Alexandria, VA, for Amicus-Appellee, National School Boards Association.
Before ALITO, SMITH and FISHER, Circuit Judges.
In the fall of the 1999 school year, school officials in the Ridgewood public school district in New Jersey administered a survey entitled "Profiles of Student Life: Attitudes and Behaviors" to students in the 7th through 12th grades. The survey sought information about students' drug and alcohol use, sexual activity, experience of physical violence, attempts at suicide, personal associations and relationships (including the parental relationship), and views on matters of public interest. The survey itself was designed to be voluntary and anonymous. Survey results were designed to be and actually were released only in the aggregate with no identifying information.
Three students and their mothers ("Plaintiffs") brought this action against the Ridgewood Board of Education ("Board") and several individually named school administrators (collectively "School Defendants"). Plaintiffs claimed that the survey had been administered so as to be involuntary and non-anonymous and had thus violated their rights under the Family Educational Records Privacy Act (FERPA), 20 U.S.C. § 1232g, the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA), 20 U.S.C. § 1232h, and the United States Constitution. Prior to any discovery, the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey denied Plaintiffs' motion to enjoin release of the survey results and granted summary judgment to the School Defendants on the merits of the statutory and constitutional claims. C.N. v. Ridgewood Bd. of Educ., 146 F.Supp.2d 528 (D.N.J.2001). On appeal, this Court reversed in part and remanded for further proceedings. 281 F.3d 219 (3d Cir.2001) (unpublished). Following discovery and voluntary dismissal of the statutory claims, the District Court granted the School Defendants' motion for summary judgment on the remaining constitutional claims. 319 F.Supp.2d 483 (D.N.J.2004). We will affirm.
Plaintiffs are Carol Nunn, individually and as guardian ad litem of Jennifer Nunn (surveyed as a 15 year old, high school freshman); Mary Epiphan, individually and as guardian ad litem of Jean Epiphan (surveyed as a 17 year old, high school senior) and L.M., individually and as guardian ad litem of V.M. (surveyed as a 12 year old, middle school 7th grader). We will refer to the student Plaintiffs as "Freshman Plaintiff," "Senior Plaintiff" and "Middle School Plaintiff" and to their guardians collectively as "Plaintiff Parents." School Defendants, with all titles identified as of the date the survey was administered, are the Board, Frederick J. Stokley (Superintendent of the Ridgewood Schools), Joyce Snider (Assistant Superintendent of the Ridgewood Schools), Dr. Ronald Verdicchio (Executive Director of the Ridgewood Community School, and "Executive Director of Community Education"),1 Robert Weakley (Director of Human Resources), John Mucciolo (Principal of the Ridgewood High School), Anthony Bencivenga (Principal of the Benjamin Franklin Middle School), and Sheila Brogan (President of the Board).2
In this section, we draw extensively on and frequently quote the District Court's concise statement of the facts. See 319 F.Supp.2d at 486-87. However, because we are addressing an appeal from summary judgment, we will also include in this recitation of the facts additional evidence and any inferences from the totality of the evidence that we conclude ultimately support the Plaintiffs as the non-moving party.
In 1998, the Human Resources Coordinating Council ("HRCC") of the Village of Ridgewood, an organization comprised of public and private social service agencies, assembled a group of community members to assess the needs of local youth. The group concluded that it was important to survey Ridgewood's student population to better understand their needs, attitudes and behavior patterns in order to use the town's programs and resources more effectively. To obtain this information, the group selected a survey designed by Search Institute of Minneapolis, Minnesota.3 Throughout 1999, representatives of the HRCC met with public bodies and citizen groups to publicize the survey and elicit public comments. The HRCC formed a team comprised of thirty representatives from various sectors of the community, including a student from Ridgewood High School (herein "Community Vision Team"), to oversee the project. The record suggests that Superintendent Stokley, Dr. Verdicchio, Board President Brogan and High School Principal Mucciolo served on the Community Vision Team, although their role in that capacity is unclear. Also unclear is exactly how the Ridgewood schools became the venue for the survey beyond the obvious fact that youth attend schools. Dr. Verdicchio testified during deposition that A. 436 (Dep. Verdicchio). Dr. Verdicchio, who was described by Board President Brogan as the liaison between the Community Vision Team and district officials, recommended to Superintendent Stokley that the youth be surveyed in the schools. No formal vote appears to have been taken by the Board to authorize administration of the survey; yet the Board, as evidenced by purchase orders in the record, eventually purchased the survey from Search Institute with funds provided to the district by the federal government under a program known as "Goals 2000."
In a letter dated May 19, 1999, Superintendent Stokley notified all parents of students in the district that a survey would be administered to students ages 12-19 in the fall of the upcoming 1999-2000 school year. The letter was sent in the wake of the Columbine, Colorado school tragedy that occurred a month before, and in it, Superintendent Stokley ruminated on the violence facing today's youth, listed available district resources, and in the penultimate paragraph, explained:
One year ago, the Human Resources Coordinating Council of Ridgewood, an organization that represents public and nonprofit agencies serving children and families, developed an initiative to make Ridgewood a more supportive and nurturing community for young people. Last September, seventy representatives from community agencies and organizations, Village government officials, educators, School Board members, and parents came together to begin the process of assessing the needs and interests of our young people. The [HRCC] and a coalition of twenty Ridgewood organizations are making plans to survey our village youth, ages 12-19 in September [1999]. The results of the survey will be reported at a community meeting in December at the Ridgewood Public Library.
A. 642.
Around the same time, members of the Federated Home and School Association, a group composed of the presidents of the nine Ridgewood parent-teacher associations ("PTA"), held several meetings at which the survey was discussed. Superintendent Stokley and Board President Brogan, as representatives of the school administration, attended these meetings. The record shows that after one of those meetings, the President of the PTA advised Dr. Verdicchio by letter dated May 21, 1999 that its members had expressed "[s]everal serious reservations and concerns" about "giving the survey to the students" because "[t]he explicit content regarding drugs usage, sexual activity, alcohol abuse and suicide ... seemed to suggest such activity was within normal adolescent experience."4 In June 1999 Dr. Verdicchio presented an overview of the survey to the PTA and told its members that the individual parents' rights to refuse the administration of the survey to their children would be respected. Although denied by the School Defendants, Freshman Plaintiff's guardian, Carol Nunn, testified during deposition that Superintendent Stokley and Board President Brogan promised at that meeting that written consent forms would be required. On June 28, 1999, after a meeting of the PTA, Board President Brogan sent an e-mail to Dr. Verdicchio stating that the "process of allowing children to opt out of participating in the survey must be part of the parental information." The PTA eventually passed a motion in support of administering the survey.
Search Institute shipped the surveys to the district in August 1999, along with a manual and cover memorandum requesting that the manual be reviewed and copies be distributed to every person involved in administering the survey. The manual emphasized that the survey required "a standardized administration format" in order to be effective. The manual also provided student instructions to be read verbatim by survey administrators, one of which provided: ...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Wood v. Arnold
...a particular topic but may not be forced to "profess beliefs or views with which the student does not agree." C.N. v. Ridgewood Bd. of Educ. , 430 F.3d 159, 186–87 (3d Cir. 2005).As alleged in the Complaint, "Defendants require that students write out and confess the Shahada, the Islamic Pr......
-
Doe v. Boyertown Area Sch. Dist.
...right to privacy and the United States Supreme Court has never proclaimed that such a generalized right exists." C.N. v. Ridgewood Bd. of Educ., 430 F.3d 159, 178 (3d Cir. 2005). But seeSterling v. Borough of Minersville, 232 F.3d 190, 193 (3d Cir. 2000) (stating that the Supreme Court "ack......
-
Anspach v. Philadelphia, Dept. of Public Health
...children." Troxel, 530 U.S. at 66, 120 S.Ct. 2054. However, "the right is neither absolute nor unqualified." C.N. v. Ridgewood Bd. of Educ., 430 F.3d 159, 182 (3d Cir.2005). The type of "interference" that the Anspachs assert would impose a constitutional obligation on state actors to conta......
-
Combs v. Homer-Center School Dist.
...a child's upbringing and education. It is clear, however, that the right is neither absolute nor unqualified." C.N. v. Ridgewood Bd. of Educ., 430 F.3d 159, 182 (3d Cir.2005). "The case law in this area establishes that parents simply do not have a constitutional right to control each and e......
-
Table of Cases
...L.Ed.2d 945 (1997), 191, 835, 839, 843 Club Misty, Inc. v. Laski, 208 F.3d 615 (7th Cir. 2000), 1321-22 C.N. v. Ridgewood Bd. of Educ., 430 F.3d 159 (3rd Cir. 2005), 1261, Cochran v. Veneman, 359 F.3d 263 (3rd Cir. 2004), cert. granted and judgment vacated, 544 U.S. 1058, 125 S.Ct. 2511, 16......
-
The Due Process Clauses of the 5th and 14th Amensments
...to students on sexual topics without parental consent constitutional under minimum rational review); C.N. v. Ridgewood Board of Education, 430 F.3d 159, 182-85 (3rd Cir. 2005) (school distributed survey to students on sexual topics without parental consent constitutional as minor infringeme......
-
Lex-praxis of Education Informational Privacy for Public Schoolchildren
...483, 498 (D.N.J. 2004) (discussing the types of information that warrant protection in the context of the family and the student), aff'd, 430 F.3d 159 (3d Cir. 2005). In C.N., the district court held that the disclosure of highly personal information by students, during the course of a volu......
-
The Parent as (mere) Educational Trustee: Whose Education Is It, Anyway?
...moral or religious context, or to supplement the information with more appropriate materials.'") (quoting C.N. v. Ridge-wood Bd. of Educ., 430 F.3d 159, 185 (3d Cir. 2005)); cf.Elk Grove Unified Sch. Dist. v. Newdow, 542 U.S. 1 (2004) (finding that a school requirement to recite Pledge of A......