Aldine ISD apologizes for lost personal documents

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New developments to a story we first broke on FOX 26.  Aldine ISD responds to a situation which could have hundreds of former students and parents at risk for identity theft.

We might ever know exactly how it happened.  But the district apologized and admitted that somewhere they dropped the ball.

Inside a filing cabinet purchased for just a dollar at a yard sale were hundreds of files you would never want in the hands of a perfect stranger.  We called the buyer Molly because she wants to remain anonymous.

“As I continue to look at it they actually have a copy of the child's birth certificate,” Molly said.

Birth certificates, drivers licenses and even social security cards belonging to both former Aldine ISD students and their parent.  Friday we made it clear to administrators we needed to know how this could have happened.

“She has hundreds of these (files).  She's holding on to but she wants a response because she is going to take it to one of these students and take it up legally,” I said. 

“Ok let me show this to our attorney and we'll take it from there,” Aldine ISD PIO Mike Keeney said.

First thing Wednesday morning Aldine ISD called us asking for the rest of the files. Which brings us to Thursday when we agreed to hand them over.  We wanted them to go on camera and explain to the students and parents how this happened.

“The process is when a school when a school sends a filing cabinet, the filing cabinet is supposed to be cleared out. In the future, the warehouse is going to double check that filing cabinet has been cleared out before they put it up for auction,” Keeney said.


“If people worry their information is in those files, will you contact them?,” I asked.  Keeney said they would and once they got the files he said they would let people know their information ended up in a non-district official's hands.

When I asked what the district says to these victims. “ We apologize. it shouldn't have happened and we will do our best to correct it,” Keeney responded.

Aldine ISD says they are working on protocols to make sure this never happens again.  FOX 26 will stay on top of this story.  We want to know if they will provide identity theft to the victims.