Administrators at Littleton Public Schools cite a federal student privacy law as the reason they refuse to divulge information about Karl Pierson, who shot fellow student Claire Davis before killing himself in Arapahoe High School last Dec. 13.
As a result, the public has no idea what the school knew about prior threats.
The laws, those officials say, also won’t let them comment on earlier school security guard statements that school officials ignored warning signs.
The district won’t say anything about its role in the shooting or discuss its security or safety protocols.
The silence is maddening but even more so because the district is citing the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act, which the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition says does not apply to adult students who are deceased.
That would include Pierson, who was 18 when he died.
Attorney Darrell Farrington, representing the district, said the law bars the release of “education records” without the consent of a parent or an adult student and doesn’t list death as an exception to the rule.
However, the U.S. Department of Education has said the law doesn’t apply to dead students. Meanwhile, common law also recognizes that privacy rights terminate upon death, according to media attorney and president of the coalition Steve Zansberg.
Pierson’s father recently raised another troubling concern that has addressed yet. s Zahira Torres he thinks the district is lying about completing a threat assessment on his son three months before the shooting that indicated he was a low-level concern.
Mark Pierson thinks the district manufactured the assessment after the shooting to cover its bases.
He says he was not aware of an assessment until after the shooting and wasn’t asked to sign the document that he says is part of the report.
This serious allegation implies the district provided false evidence for a criminal investigation and demands an immediate response from the district.
But, yet again, there is silence.
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