A new law that calls for the collection of Social Security numbers of Maine public school students as a way to track student progress and evaluate educational offerings has both educators and parents concerned about potential security risks.

Parents in Cape Elizabeth, Scarborough and South Portland will soon be getting letters regarding the state law, An Act to Improve the Ability of the Department of Education to Conduct Longitudinal Data Studies, which requires that school districts ask for student Social Security numbers. Complying with the request is up to parents.

“Anytime you ask for personal information like Social Security numbers the most important thing we have to be concerned about is identity theft. That’s the world we live in today,” said Rick Carter, South Portland Board of Education chairman. “Certainly the school district will do everything in their power to protect the information.”

South Portland Superintendent Suzanne Godin said letters requesting the information are going home with elementary school students the first week of school and will be mailed to middle and high school students, as is the policy with other school-based correspondences.

Social Security numbers can help track student achievement because the numbers are considered unique identifiers that stay with students as they progress through school and into the workplace.

Godin said she sees the benefit of long-term studies into the effectiveness of educational programming and student achievement, but, like many of her colleagues, acknowledges sharing the information is a risk.

“I think the usefulness of the data is definitely an educational benefit,” Godin said. “But there are risks in giving out Social Security numbers. It is our obligation to be up front with parents, both in terms of its purpose and the fact it is voluntary and let the parents make the decision on which direction to go. We need to make it clear this is not a condition of enrollment.”

She intends to bring the topic up at the Sept. 13 school board meeting, where parents will have a chance to ask questions or express concerns about the request.

David Doyle, superintendent of the Scarborough school system, said he is in the process of preparing letters to send out to the district’s parents. He expects the letters to be mailed out to middle school and high school students next week and be sent home with students in kindergarten through fifth grade.

“We are going to provide parents with the pertinent details about the reasoning behind the request and explain that it is voluntary. We will send out the letters and see what happens,” he said, adding that the Social Security information will be held in a different location from other student files, “so access will be much more limited.”

Access to the files will also be limited in South Portland. Per a recommendation from lawyers for the Maine School Management Association, Godin said, her district will, after entering the Social Security numbers into the system, destroy the portion of the form with the numbers on it and retain the portion with the parents’ consent in a secure location.

Cape Elizabeth Superintendent Alan Hawkins voiced his concerns with the request at an Aug. 24 school board meeting.

Nevertheless, because districts are required to request the numbers, Hawkins has said he hopes to send out a letter to parents in the coming weeks modeled after a letter the lawyers drafted and sent to superintendents throughout the state.

Such a letter would give parents a clear message on the request and how the numbers are going to be used.

“We now have some consistency with the letter, which I think is extremely important,” he said.

Hawkins said the district’s traditional back-to-school packets will be available online, but the Social Security number request will be sent out to parents in the mail.

Before that happens, Cape Elizabeth School Board Chairwoman Rebecca Millett said, the board will be addressing the issue at its Sept. 7 meeting to decide whether the board, as a collective body, wants to make a statement to parents.

Millett said she hasn’t made up her mind yet about the request, indicating she can see the both benefits and consequences with sharing the information.

“I have mixed feelings. I understand the goal of wanting to track the effects of our teaching and can see how Social Security numbers allow that to happen,” she said. “I also have a lot of concern asking individual school districts to gather such personal information, given how easy it is for a database system to be hacked.”

Janelle Deschino, a Cape Elizabeth parent and co-president of the Pine Cove Elementary School Parents Association, echoed Millett’s safety concerns.

“I personally have strong issues with this request,” she said. “I hope it is presented to parents that this is not required.”

Sally Johnson-Fiorini, president of the Brown Elementary School Parents Association in South Portland, said she, too, is not supportive of sharing Social Security numbers.

“Personally, I wouldn’t give it out, mostly because of safety concerns,” she said. “I don’t think it’s necessary to do the long-term tracking.”

The Brown Elementary School Parents Association will be discussing the issue on Sept. 27, its first meeting the new school year.

Parents and educators, however, are not the only groups voicing concern about the law.

Early last month, the Maine Civil Liberties Union sent letters to school boards across the state encouraging them to pass a resolution affirming students’ privacy rights.

“This is definitely a privacy issue. Even the most secure databases are susceptible to breaches,” said Brianna Twofoot, field director of the MCLU. “We feel parents must be informed about the risks of sharing Social Security numbers and about the benefits of keeping our most personal information private.”

She said as of Aug. 30, school districts in Bethel, Biddeford, Brewer and School Administrative Districts 44 in Waterville and 58 in Salem Township have all adopted resolutions against the sharing of Social Security numbers. School districts in Auburn, Lewiston and Portland and the Lower Kennebec Region School Unit in Bath and Union 76 in Brooklin/Sedgwick are all considering adopting resolutions, Twofoot said.

“We have been getting calls across the state from school boards that are considering it,” Twofoot said.

Biddeford is the only community so far in southern Maine to take a stance against sharing such personal information.

On Aug. 24, the Biddeford school board voted 5-1 to adopt a resolution that “respectfully requests that parents protect their child’s privacy by refusing to provide the school with their child’s Social Security number” and “requests that the Maine Legislature rescind Public Law Chapter 448 at the next legislative session.”

In the resolution, Joanne Twomey, mayor and school committee chairwoman, wrote that government agencies, despite security precautions, are not immune to security breaches. In 2006, she noted, the Veterans Administration had a computer stolen that contained 26.5 million Social Security numbers. In 2008-2009, the Finance Authority of Maine inadvertently mailed Social Security numbers of some individuals on forms to the wrong recipients.

The Federal Trade Commission, according to Twomey, estimates that as many as 9 million individuals have their identity stolen every year, often times because of Social Security numbers falling into the wrong hands.

The federal Social Security Administration advised that many times children are targeted in identity theft because they have no credit history and it could take many years before they are aware their identity had been stolen.