Outrage Erupts: Cherry Hill School Violates Children’s Privacy, Shares Information with Anti-Parent Group NJPEC

Violating FERPA

New Jersey schools work to hide kids' gender identity from parents, but have no problem releasing the private information of over 100 students to an anti-parent group claiming to protect schools from "Radical Right extremists"—also known as “parents”, many of whom have been elected to school board since 2020.

Harvey Vasquez found his son’s name on a list of K-5 Cherry Hill students who opted out of the very controversial Sex Education Program posted publicly online on the OPRAmachine website. This information had been displaced online for a year due to the negligence of Michael Gottesman, Founder of the NJPEC, the Cherry Hill School District, and the privately held OPRAmachine company that displayed this information, founded by Gavin Rozzi.

Harvy Vasquez was disturbed that the group that received his son’s name has been accused of bullying school boards into adopting a progressive education agenda (according to the Sunlight Policy Center of NJ). Gottesman has also been accused of speaking out at BOE meetings to threaten districts with lawsuits if they do not implement the controversial NJ Sex Ed Standards, which are now at odds with newly elected President Trump’s Education Agenda. He wants to stop “workarounds”, forcing Sex Ed standards down the throats of parents and children. It’s also not shocking that he also advocates schools to hide gender identity from parents under NJ Policy 5756. Below is a video where Gottesman advocates for early sex education in Millstone NJ and tells a disturbing story about an uncle who “eats” his niece’s “crackers.”

In August/September of 2023, Gottesman made duplicate requests to 387 school districts asking for information on the number of children who opted out of the controversial Sex-Ed curriculum (created by the state Sex-Ed Standards) in kindergarten through 12 grade.

Below is the request sent by Gottesman through the OPRAmachine website districts was comprehensive and excessive.

In accordance with the New Jersey open public records Act, we hereby request for response to the following request hold

1) Please provide documents indicating the total number of students enrolled in all public schools and charter schools in your District for the 2022-2023 school year;

2) Please provide documents indicating the total number of students whose parents have availed themselves of the opt-out provisions of N.J.S.A.18A:35-4.7 and opted their child out of all or a portion of the 2020 NJSLS-CHPE mandate or curriculum promulgated in accordance thereto for the 2022-2023 school year. Please provide documents indicating the number of opt-outs by individual grade levels.

3) Please provide a copy of the document(s) used by the district by which parents can opt-out or opt-in their children from all or a portion of the curriculum mandated by the 2020 NJSLS-CHPE in your district.

4) Please provide documents showing how you implemented the “parent opt-out” for the 2020 NJSLS-CHPE and Health & Physical Education curriculum and a copy of the document by which parents can opt-out their children from all or a portion of the curriculum mandated by the 2020 NJSLS-CHPE in your district. Including but not limited to forms, flyers, emails to parents and/or a website.

5) Please provide documents showing how the 2020 NJSLS-CHPE mandate was implemented in your district, for example: a) in the classroom; b) at home by parents; c) as a homework assignment; d) in an assembly; e) as a webinar; f) being taught on the last day of school; g) any methods but with elements removed; h) not at all.

6) Copies of the BOE policies and regulations regarding the composition of your “Book Review Committee,” as well as policies controlling book reviews or book removal requests.

7)Copies of any book removal or review requests made by residents of your school district since November 1, 2022 to present.

8)If any books have been removed from curriculum or from public school libraries as a result of a demand for removal or by the Board action in accordance with your book removal policy, copies of all documents relating to the review or removal.

9) Any documents, policies or regulations relating to the review of current textbooks or the review of new textbooks or textbooks being considered for purchase.

10) Copies of all legal bills from the Board Attorney or from any outside council from January 1, 2023 to present

Yours faithfully, Michael Gottesman,

Individually and as Founder of the New Jersey Public Education Coalition

Excessive OPRA requests can overwhelm schools, drain resources, impact their operations, and increase errors with the school’s reply. With this many requests, and the size of information requested, it is no surprise that at least one district (that we know of) made a mistake and sent Gottesman the names of the students and not the number of students, as requested. Cherry Hill responded quickly to note the error, however, neither Gottesman, Cherry Hill District nor OPRAmachine bothered to delete the kid’s names so this private information was displayed on the internet for a over a year.

Gottesman has not only filed requests to find out how many students opted out of sex education and how many sexually explicit books were removed from libraries, but he also continues to flood schools with additional requests, such as seeking information like names from the “Coffee Chat” attendance list in Marlboro BOE and details about Cherry Hill BOE candidates in an effort to target parents that are involved in their child’s school. All this is done publically on OPRAmachine

At the end of the day, it is Cherry Hill that released the names of children and violated FERPA. Gottesman can make any request he wants. However, what responsibility do OPRAmachine and Gottesman have to refrain from publishing information sent in ERROR that violates FERPA, especially naming children? Cherry Hill district didn’t realize their mistake was published online. Who’s job is it to find and fix these errors?

To be clear, OPRAmachine is NOT a state-run website. It is a private website. Anyone can easily send a records request to any part of NJ government without using an online site to publish the information. What responsibility does OPRAmachine have to monitor the site and look for information that may violate the privacy of children? None?

It seems that parents need to be vigilant in checking to make sure their children’s privacy was not violated on OPRAmachine, luckily you can search through their records for your child’s name and see if it comes up. The state should probably look into a bill requiring sites like OPRAmachine to ensure they do not post private information without permission. As for Gottesman, he will hopefully move onto some other progressive mission and leave the kids alone.