Upstate, NY School in Hot Water Over ‘Relationship Application’

Would you want your student to fill out a form about their dating life to their principal?

An Upstate New York high school is in some hot water after a photo of a Relationship Application has gone viral. WNYT 13 in Albany's Tessa Bentulan started digging after a parent of a female student at Rensselaer City School District was allegedly given a Relationship Application. 

What's a Relationship Application?

The application asks questions about who the student will be dating, future behavior in the relationship, drama it may cause and agreeing to "appropriate interactions" like shoulder hugs and high fives.

As the story began to gain traction on social media thanks to WNTY, the Rensselaer City School District responded.

Superintendent Joseph Kardash explained to WNYT 13 that the application was given to the student to address “animosity” between a few students which all started because of a relationship ending. The Form was being used to, according to Kardash, “prevent escalation through student reflection.”

The vice principal allegedly used a form like this at his prior school district. Kardash wrote in a statement It was intended to address student responses and reactions that stem from adolescent relationships This document is not a form that the school regularly handed out to students.”

School Board Vice Principal Lark Rutecki tells News 13 that this was a big issues that shouldn't have been pushed under the rug stating “When a parent is bringing a concern to you, school board members are bringing concern to you, and you’re just brushing it aside? It feels like you’re protecting a staff member versus being concerned about how this impacted the student involved.”

Rutecki adds "For a faculty member to want to know personal information just doesn’t seem right.”

With that being said the initial application was not filled out or handed in.