An Update On Those PS 139 Student Documents

Several readers were concerned yesterday by the papers left outside PS 139 disclosing students’ information, and the general problem of how garbage is dealt with at the school. We reached out to the Department of Education about the matter, and this is what they had to say:

We checked, and at the school all records from the main office are shredded before being disposed. We noticed that there was some paper from classroom wastebaskets that was in a bag that had opened on Argyle Road. The paper was not official DOE forms but was part of the classroom. The custodian is making sure the is paper is recovered and then shredded.

Also, to avoid similar situations from occurring, the school will place designated recycling boxes in various locations for classroom items that need to be shredded.

The initial idea that the papers did not need to be shredded before disposal simply because they were not official DOE documents is a little hard to swallow, but the effort on the school custodian’s part to collect the paper that was reportedly all over the street is appreciated, and it’s great that the DOE and PS 139 are aiming to prevent this from happening again by adding new shredding-specific recycling receptacles at the school. It’s interesting to consider how these kind of initiatives, if employed on a larger scale, might change the school’s general trash disposal issues as well.

How does the response from the DOE affect your feeling about the way the papers were handled?