By Leah Schwarting

VIDALIA — A new privacy policy could take a bit of the personality out of Friday night football games in Concordia Parish — at least from the announcer’s perspective.

The new policy, adopted Aug. 13, requires parents of athletes to provide written permission to allow students’ names to be released, including being read over the loudspeaker.

The school district said they are simply aiming to err on the side of caution in adhering to a new state law.

School leaders say the policy, adopted Aug. 13, may seem a bit draconian, but it simply aims to err on the side of caution in adhering to a new state law.

“We don’t release any student information to anyone without parent permission anymore,” Ssuperintendent Paul Nelson said.

This includes everything from athletes’ heights and weights, as well as calling out their names on the loudspeakers, Nelson said.

This also applies to releasing the names of students who achieve honors such as the Principal’s List.

“We’re interpreting it to mean that we’re not supposed to do that without releases,” Nelson said.

The law comes on the heels of an Attorney General opinion on a piece of legislation passed by the Louisiana State Legislature. The opinion came out near the end of July.

Nelson believes the legislation was originally geared toward stopping the state government from sharing test data with the federal government and outside vendors.

But Nelson said the wording had a different effect.

“The way it’s written it affects all school districts,” Nelson said.

Nelson said he believes the initial legislation was passed in 2014, but it was reexamined in the Spring 2015 legislative session. But even after the session was over, Nelson said the district’s attorneys thought they needed to wait for the Attorney General’s opinion before acting.

When the opinion was released, Nelson said the district decided to cover all possible bases, which resulted in the new policy.

After the policy was approved, the new parental release forms were sent to the school, with some of them making their way to athletes’ parents as early as last week, Nelson said.

His goal is to get athletes ready and all of their releases in before the first game on Sept. 4.

Ferriday High School head coach Dwight Woods said all the players’ release forms should be completed by then.

“A lot have come back already,” he said.

Woods said he has seen some parents with privacy concerns in the past, but has also seen many students, and parents, who want attention drawn to achievements.

“I’ve seen both sides of the issue,” Woods said.

Woods compared it to a balancing act.

“We walk that fine line every day of trying to protect the kids’ privacy, but at the same time we need some leeway to where we can acknowledge the kids where they’ve done something good,” Woods said.

However, Woods said the team was going to follow the new policy.

“Whatever policy that we adopt as a parish, we’re going to go along with it 100 percent,” he said.