Can I sue Callie Oettinger?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is what FCPS gave her access to:

33,000+ students: Nine spreadsheets listing all students divisionwide with IEPs or 504 Plans. Five list over 26,000 students and four list over 33,000 students.
10,000+ students: December 1 count spreadsheet
1,593 students: Academic advising spreadsheet for 9th and 10th grade students by PE classes and 11th grade students by History class
1,500+ students: 7,468 teacher recommendations and notes spreadsheet
1,400+ students: PSAT and PSAT NMSQT scores
1,000+ students: FCPSMed caseload, related services
1,000+ students: mental health tracking data, to include marking students with suicidal ideation, drug addiction, domestic violence at home, and so on.
1,000+ students: spreadsheet listing students and their intent to attend.
300+ students: spreadsheet of course requests for students, listing their primary disability and placement
200+ students: list of students with IEPs due.
150+ students: three spreadsheets of testing accommodations for sped students
150+ students: Grade 4-6 PE gradebook
100+ students: spreadsheet of sped and esol 1-6b students taking an SOL
100+ students: Three quarters of grades for sped students, pulled according to the sped teacher to whom they’re assigned.
100+ students: multiple spreadsheets listing legal matters
90 students: 2019 End of Year goal data
50+ students: Math eCart data
1: One FCPS state complaint response for a student
1: One heartbreaking email from a father, telling a school principal about his child being sexually assaulted
Also included in my kids' educational records:

Invoices
Budgets
Closed meeting minutes
Emails (toxic and otherwise)
Proof that some "leaders" have based special education-related decisions on how connected a parent is, rather than what's appropriate for the student (and what happens to be in line with federal regulations)

Well, no one else has ever done anything with the data before.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I apologize if this information is available somewhere in this thread—I can’t read the whole thing. I just received a letter today saying that my child’s information was part of this leak. Where exactly did this woman publish the information to? Thanks for any info!

My evolving understanding--take it for what it's worth: She shared some data examples without kids' names on her website and she worked with a journalist who also wrote an article about it using images of files with kids' names redacted and discussing details about the data breach. There's no evidence that she got parents' consent to examine the files or share the redacted files, but there's also no evidence that she's posted all the data redacted or anything at all with kids' names on it. I don't know if anyone has dug through her website--there's a link in this thread that contained a file with some seemingly private information about individual kids' situations but with none of their names attached. If you google her name, you can find the website and judge for yourself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I apologize if this information is available somewhere in this thread—I can’t read the whole thing. I just received a letter today saying that my child’s information was part of this leak. Where exactly did this woman publish the information to? Thanks for any info!

My evolving understanding--take it for what it's worth: She shared some data examples without kids' names on her website and she worked with a journalist who also wrote an article about it using images of files with kids' names redacted and discussing details about the data breach. There's no evidence that she got parents' consent to examine the files or share the redacted files, but there's also no evidence that she's posted all the data redacted or anything at all with kids' names on it. I don't know if anyone has dug through her website--there's a link in this thread that contained a file with some seemingly private information about individual kids' situations but with none of their names attached. If you google her name, you can find the website and judge for yourself.

The issue is she could not possibly have redacted all the information she received herself prior to sharing it. Further, the online article I believe you are referring to also states under the images of records “The 74 has redacted their real names.” That seems like a confirmation it was shared unredacted.

[Anonymous]

I just got a letter today. My 5th grader has had no intervention. No IEP. She's never talked to the school counselor about anything (or have I). I'm totally baffled about what info they might have released about her.

[Anonymous]

It was probably the general ed students in the PE gradebook.

[Anonymous]

This is what FCPS gave her access to:

33,000+ students: Nine spreadsheets listing all students divisionwide with IEPs or 504 Plans. Five list over 26,000 students and four list over 33,000 students.
10,000+ students: December 1 count spreadsheet
1,593 students: Academic advising spreadsheet for 9th and 10th grade students by PE classes and 11th grade students by History class
1,500+ students: 7,468 teacher recommendations and notes spreadsheet
1,400+ students: PSAT and PSAT NMSQT scores
1,000+ students: FCPSMed caseload, related services
1,000+ students: mental health tracking data, to include marking students with suicidal ideation, drug addiction, domestic violence at home, and so on.
1,000+ students: spreadsheet listing students and their intent to attend.
300+ students: spreadsheet of course requests for students, listing their primary disability and placement
200+ students: list of students with IEPs due.
150+ students: three spreadsheets of testing accommodations for sped students
150+ students: Grade 4-6 PE gradebook
100+ students: spreadsheet of sped and esol 1-6b students taking an SOL
100+ students: Three quarters of grades for sped students, pulled according to the sped teacher to whom they’re assigned.
100+ students: multiple spreadsheets listing legal matters
90 students: 2019 End of Year goal data
50+ students: Math eCart data
1: One FCPS state complaint response for a student
1: One heartbreaking email from a father, telling a school principal about his child being sexually assaulted
Also included in my kids' educational records:

Invoices
Budgets
Closed meeting minutes
Emails (toxic and otherwise)
Proof that some "leaders" have based special education-related decisions on how connected a parent is, rather than what's appropriate for the student (and what happens to be in line with federal regulations)

NOTE: This also includes information for past graduates, at least back to the class of 2022.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Medically protected information of minors that she has stolen. I am looking forward to attending her trial and making an impact statement before her sentencing.

You are ridiculous. This is not going to happen. She didn't steal the information btw.

I'm not happy with the situation of not knowing what's happening with the data, but I agree there's no evidence she stole this information.

Callie kept information that she was not entitled to. If a bank gave you $10k more by accident, you don't get to keep it. They'll get it back from you or have you arrested.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can sue the 501(c)(3) nonprofit called Special Education Action, lead by Callie Oettinger, which advocates for families that have been denied special education services, but really, why go after the nonprofit that's trying to help and advocate for families, and bring to light the misdeeds for FCPS, to encourage FCPS to do better. It's like suing the NAACP, or ACLU when the federal government makes a mistake. The real issue is with FCPS's terrible track record of mishandling information.

Also, here's Callie's response, which gives a lot more details then what FCPS is misleading you about.
https://specialeducationaction.com/pro-tip-dont-believe-everything-fairfax-county-public-school-tells-you/

Ah, she copied 35,000 records "under the impression" they were her previous records requests. If someone sues they will find out during discovery what actually happened.

Why did she copy anything, fcps should be the one that copies and gives her the data. FCPS is at fault

Whatever you say, Callie.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can sue the 501(c)(3) nonprofit called Special Education Action, lead by Callie Oettinger, which advocates for families that have been denied special education services, but really, why go after the nonprofit that's trying to help and advocate for families, and bring to light the misdeeds for FCPS, to encourage FCPS to do better. It's like suing the NAACP, or ACLU when the federal government makes a mistake. The real issue is with FCPS's terrible track record of mishandling information.

Also, here's Callie's response, which gives a lot more details then what FCPS is misleading you about.
https://specialeducationaction.com/pro-tip-dont-believe-everything-fairfax-county-public-school-tells-you/

NO games here people, I would go after Callie directly and her estate. Not her non-profit. And of course Callie is here saying you should sue her org so that she's not personally liable. And again she's making it about FCPS. Thanks for telling us exactly how you don't want to be sued, Callie.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just got a letter today. My 5th grader has had no intervention. No IEP. She's never talked to the school counselor about anything (or have I). I'm totally baffled about what info they might have released about her.

I posted just a bit ago asking for information about where this woman published things and have since found her website. My son is a 3rd grader in general education who’s never had any major dealings with counselors. The letter I got said his information was shared in an incident that happened on or around October 19th. Looking at this woman’s site, it looks like that was when the data related to 35,000 students was shared. Does your letter also have that date?

I am not sure if some information has been taken off her website already, but it seems like most of what is there now is fairly harmless. Harmless in terms of not identifying children. This is not harmless in terms of school personnel hours and our tax dollars being spent to deal with this woman’s shenanigans.

Further up someone said she worked with a journalist to publish information. Can anyone share any specifics about that, please?

[Anonymous]

I’m the pp directly above. I want to clarify that I meant the info that appears to be related to the October 19 leak seems not to have identifying info. I didn’t mean to minimize the identifying information related to other data. I’m so sorry for anyone who has really negatively been affected by this.

[Anonymous]

We got the letter about my kid today. This woman is a complete scumbag.

Years ago when my children were in elementary school, the teacher accidentally swapped the report cards that came in those brown manila envelopes for my child and another kid. I didn't know the other child or their parent but the moment I realized the mistake, I reached for the student directory to find the family's number. Before I'd even had a chance to find it, the phone rang--it was the other child's parent, who said that she was going to pretend she'd never seen my kid's report card, and did I have hers. I said I felt exactly the same way and I was walking out the door to drive over to her house to swap files.

That's what decent, normal people do and clearly what the Callie Oettingers of this world do not do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We got the letter about my kid today. This woman is a complete scumbag.

Years ago when my children were in elementary school, the teacher accidentally swapped the report cards that came in those brown manila envelopes for my child and another kid. I didn't know the other child or their parent but the moment I realized the mistake, I reached for the student directory to find the family's number. Before I'd even had a chance to find it, the phone rang--it was the other child's parent, who said that she was going to pretend she'd never seen my kid's report card, and did I have hers. I said I felt exactly the same way and I was walking out the door to drive over to her house to swap files.

That's what decent, normal people do and clearly what the Callie Oettingers of this world do not do.

Also you didn’t show up to the school offices 3 days in a row demanding every scrap of information related to your child including electronic copies of any document or communication containing their name or ID number. And that’s just how many times she did an information request this year. If we want to be really clear on what the Callie Oettingers of the world are doing. I’m not sure how I feel about people inferring she got this data purely by accident. She didn’t steal it, but she was hoping to trip them up and be given something she shouldn’t have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We got the letter about my kid today. This woman is a complete scumbag.

Years ago when my children were in elementary school, the teacher accidentally swapped the report cards that came in those brown manila envelopes for my child and another kid. I didn't know the other child or their parent but the moment I realized the mistake, I reached for the student directory to find the family's number. Before I'd even had a chance to find it, the phone rang--it was the other child's parent, who said that she was going to pretend she'd never seen my kid's report card, and did I have hers. I said I felt exactly the same way and I was walking out the door to drive over to her house to swap files.

That's what decent, normal people do and clearly what the Callie Oettingers of this world do not do.

Exactly. She is betraying other families. She is using their personal, private information without their consent or knowledge.

[Anonymous]

...going off the rails, someone has started a FFX Underground thread... have fun...