Sensitive student information recovered in Oregon City dumpster

Sensitive student information recovered in Oregon City dumpster

OREGON CITY, OR (KPTV) –
Hundreds of pages of private student and parent information is uncovered in an Oregon City dumpster. The district admitted to the FOX 12 investigators their records were thrown away improperly.

FOX 12 has confirmed that many of those documents came from Oregon City High School. The district says they deeply regret how they handled student records and are now looking into how it even happened.

The documents were reportedly spotted sitting in the dumpster outside of the Old Oregon City High School on Saturday by a local woman who was walking to the school to watch her granddaughter play volleyball.

“I don’t usually go and take documents out of a dumpster,” said Oregon City resident Kathy. “But, it was clear something wasn’t right, they were full, absolutely full.”

Kathy’s probing case of curiosity uncovered hundreds of documents with student names, addresses, ID numbers, grades, parent names and addresses and even some progress reports.

“It’s upsetting,” Kathy said. “The safety of kids is real important to me, and you know, that puts them at risk. There are pedophiles in state, and sadly they easily could have gotten that information and gone to a kid saying that their parent told them to pick them up and pretend that they know who they are.”

“Or, what about another kid in their school who gets ahold of their grades and uses the information to bully them?” Kathy asked.

“It’s scary, I don’t want my children’s information out there,” Kristy Fritzler said. Her family’s information was found among the pile of paperwork. “They should really be more careful and shred documents, and make sure it’s thrown away properly.”

After talking with Kathy about her discovery, the district tells FOX 12 they picked up all of those documents that were still sitting in the dumpster on Monday afternoon.

The district says they are now working to make sure they are properly shredded.

The district confirms no medical, or financial information was breached, and say they are now using the incident as a way to reinforce policies and procedures related to student records with all appropriate staff.

“It’s all good now, and I’m glad they’re gone, but there’s a lot of student and parent information out there that hopefully no one got a hold of,” said Kathy.

The district says it will now work to identify affected families and notify them of the breach as a courtesy.

Legal Shred
11806 S US Hwy 41
Gibsonton, FL 33534
813-321-4507