Court asked to order school to present tape

A prosecutor says he believes the tapes may depict criminal behavior.
By ED RUNYAN
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- The Trumbull County prosecutor's office wants Warren City Schools to turn over a videotape the county office believes shows a criminal act taking place on a school bus.
Assistant Prosecutor Michael A. Burnett has asked the Trumbull County Family Court to order the school district to turn over the videotape of an assault. The Feb. 10 episode on a bus knocked a kindergartner unconscious.
Monte Horton, Family Court magistrate, said he believes the court will rule on Burnett's request early next week.
Burnett also seeks information on a second episode on a Warren school bus. This involved middle school pupils and a sexual assault that allegedly occurred in April, Burnett said.
The school district filed a formal objection, saying turning over the tapes would violate the Ohio Student Privacy Act, which prevents school districts from releasing to third parties the names or other personally identifiable information concerning pupils attending a public school without written parental consent.
Why tapes are sought
Burnett said he wants the tapes because he believes the two juveniles may have committed acts warranting juvenile charges. Warren police filed reports on both episodes, Burnett said.
Burnett said the school system has been hypocritical with regard to the privacy issue. The prosecutor's office, he noted, receives reports of truant pupils from the school system containing pupil names, Social Security numbers, address, birth dates, physical descriptions and parents' names.
The school system allows sporting events to be videotaped and published in local press and provides the press with names and achievements of its pupils, Burnett's brief to the court states.
The school system's policies say that a pupil's name, address, telephone number, birth date and photograph can be provided to any individual, even without written consent of a parent. However, the policy says a parent may refuse to allow such information to be released by giving written notice to the school board.
"It seems curious that with such an open policy of giving student information to virtually anyone who requests it, that the Warren City Schools would choose this incident to refuse to provide evidence of a crime to a bona fide law enforcement agency," Burnett wrote in his brief.
"It is impossible to conclude that the intent of [Ohio law] is to prevent the prosecution of violent crimes just because they occur on school grounds," Burnett wrote.
In the Feb. 10 episode, a 10-year-old girl was accused of knocking a 5-year-old unconscious. She was expelled from school, and the boy later returned. The bus driver, Irene Foundoulis, was fired from her job and sued the school district to get her job back.
runyan@vindy.com