Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Like many of the bills we consider in the Legislature, Senate Bill 27 was introduced in response to a constituent complaint. Last year I was contacted by a mother in Anchorage who was concerned that her minor daughter might be driving with a suspended license. When she contacted the Division of Motor Vehicles to inquire about this, she was astonished when the Division informed her that privacy protections in the law prohibited the state from disclosing any information about her daughter's driving record.

Mr. Chairman, I know that you and other committee members who have had teenage children are aware of the responsibilities parents take upon their shoulders once their child receives a license. A parent must consent before the license is issued, and then the law holds the parent responsible for any damage caused by negligence or wilful misconduct while the child is operating a vehicle.

For example, consider the case of the Anchorage mother who called me. She was denied the information needed to determine whether her daughter's license was suspended. But if her daughter had been arrested for driving with a suspended license, whom would the police call first? The mother, of course.

I suspect that this provision of our state law was unintentional. The statutes governing DMV include a provision that keeps all driving records "confidential and private." This is obviously a needed protection for adults, but it makes no sense in the context of the parent-child relationship. A copy of this statute is in your bill packet. You will notice there is an exception that allows law enforcement personnel to have access to the information. But there is no such exception for parents. Senate Bill 27 will correct this problem.

Mr. Chairman, while we were drafting this legislation we asked Legal Services to look into another area. We asked them to research our statutes and determine if there was any provision in state law that guaranteed parents the right to access their children's school records. I was surprised to learn there is no such law. There is a statute (AS 25.20.130), which is also in your packets, that guarantees a non-custodial parent the same access to school records that is allowed for custodial parents. But nowhere does the law define what access rights a custodial parent has!

Therefore, we have added in Section 1 of this bill a provision that also guarantees parental access to school records. The Anchorage School District already has this policy, though I can't speak to the policies of other school districts in the state. There is a federal law (20 USC 1232g), which is also in your packets, that denies federal funding to any educational agency or institution that does not allow parental access to children's school records. In light of this, I believe it is only prudent to state clearly in our statutes that parents have a right to this information.

Mr. Chairman, that concludes my presentation. I will have to run to another meeting, but my staff aide Mike Pauley will remain here to answer any questions you may have about this legislation. Thank you.