Outrage leads Ozaukee H.S. to shred surveys taken by students



OZAUKEE COUNTY (WITI) -- One parent's complaint has a school district scrapping an entire high school's stack of surveys -- and it has prompted an apology from the school district's superintendent. A concerned father in northern Ozaukee County feels the school district violated policies at the student's expense.

Jason Lillis was furious when his ninth-grader came home from school Monday, March 10th after taking a survey at Ozaukee High School.

"Kind of raised some hairs on the back of my neck," Lillis said.

Then, he got his hands on the survey -- the 2014 National Student Report to Congress.

"Was quite alarmed with what I saw. 'What are your feelings about Barack Obama and how he is doing? How is Congress doing? Where so you get your news from?' Those are questions high school kids may not have even established their own thoughts on yet. They are biased based on what their parents say," Lillis said.

Lillis says he was concerned about a possible agenda, and also concerned parents were notified students would be taking the survey.

"It doesn`t give (parents) an opportunity to discuss it with their kids and educate them," Lillis said.

The superintendent of the Northern Ozaukee School District says although the survey was voluntary, he admits the instructors may not have administered the survey properly.

"Normally in the process there is an opportunity for parents to gain information upon what the survey is about. They have an opportunity to look at the survey and request their student is not involved. We did overlook that part of it," Blake Peuse said.

Peuse says the surveys will be destroyed -- even though part of the survey did focus on college and career aspirations.

Meanwhile, the center that created the questionnaire says the intent was to give students across the nation a chance to be a part of a college planning program and an anonymous way to have their voices heard.

"The aggregate reporting for all of that confidential political polling information gets delivered to the senators from their state in a kind of state compared to national report -- so the Office of the Senate has an opportunity to see how their student stack up in against to the rest of the nation as it relates to opinions on these issues," Ryan Munce with The National Research Center for College & University Admissions said.

Peuse says the survey has been given out in the past -- but given the concerns, a message was sent to parents on Tuesday, indicating the surveys will not be sent back to the research center.

Instead, they're being shredded.