Parents of students at Eagle Hill Middle School say they'd like to see the district develop a policy for when they notify parents about an incident.
The debate started after a seventh grade music teacher allegedly asked students to reveal personal health information to her, so she could place them in class.
Christina Percoski's daughter was in that teacher's class. Percoski says the teacher told her daughter that adolescent female voices change when the girls get their periods. She said she was going to ask the students to share whether or not they have had their period at the following class.
"I was shocked that the teacher would need that type of personal information," says Percoski.
Percoski contacted school district officials, who said they didn't know this was going on in the class. They assured Percoski the teacher would no longer be asking those questions.
Then, the district decided not to notify parents of the students in that class of what had happened. The move concerned Percoski and other parents.
Joseph Callery has three children in the district, one of whom may have been placed in that music class next year.
"We send our kids to school. We trust that the school administrators and the school teachers are going to act in their best interest," says Callery. "When something goes wrong, good, bad, or for innocent reasons, (we trust) that the school is going to communicate with us responsibly."
Callery says he believes Fayetteville-Manlius is a great school district, but district officials missed a chance to make it better. He says this could have been a teaching moment for parents and their children, if they had been notified about what happened.
Percoski says since her initial complaint, she has learned that the teacher had been asking questions about puberty for 15 years, and she was the first parent to approach district officials.
"I was told by the superintendent that there weren't enough complaints about this to warrant a notification to parents," says Percoski. "Well, I don't think parents know about it to complain about it. It's kind of a Catch-22."
Fayetteville-Manlius Superintendent Corliss Kaiser says the district does not have a set policy on when to notify parents of an incident, and she says she doesn't know if it will consider creating such a policy. Kaiser says in this particular circumstance, the district decided not to notify parents, but she stressed the teacher is no longer asking those types of questions.
