Our office received a phone call this afternoon. A woman asks to get a message to her grandson, who is in one of our classes. Student records are supposed to be confidential, so we don't know how she knows the student is in one of our classes, and she can't identify the course the student is in. But she knows it's one of ours because someone in the administration building had told her and gave her the number to our office.

In an emergency, rules be hanged, we'll track down the student. So my office manager asks what the message is.

"Please tell my grandson to come to breakfast at 7:00 rather than 8:00 tomorrow."

Flabbergasted, my office manager says she said "OK" and ended the conversation.

Did anybody think to ask grandma what the message was before giving out student data that is supposed to be private?

We did deliver the message, since we are so worried about student retention.