Local School District Publishes Photos without Written Consent!

I work for a local school system that seems to have an ethics issue. Today was National Father's Walk Your Children to School Day. They had a local judge come and even the founder of program! Of course the district had PR representatives there and they were taking lots of photos of the dignitaries, the children and their dads. I also noticed that they were having the parents sign consent forms for their children's pictures to be in publications for the school district. While they had forms for the children, they did not ask any of the adults for their permission. They even took a picture of me without even asking. This made me ask questions to myself. Who needs legal consent? Whose consent do they need? When do you need written consent and when is verbal consent okay? Are public dignitaries exempt from this consent?

A few years ago, when my school district came out with the media consent forms, I was really impressed. I thought wow, we are really on the ball. They even had us sign consent forms for showing artwork made by the children. After starting my ethics class and seeing how the PR department works, I am not so sure. I still think its great that we have consent forms for the kids and of course, it keeps us legal. But shouldn't we get consent from everyone? Okay, I can understand public dignitaries, like the judge and the founder, because they put themselves in the public eye and it was an event centered around them. I am an employee so maybe she has my permission by default. In addition, I actually knew the photographer, so I was cool with her snapping my photo. The only hang up I have is with the parents. What if they did not want their picture to be public? For what ever reason, shouldn't they had the right to consent?

I believe that the school district was in the right in this instance. They got written consent from the minors and non verbal consent from the adults. As they had the right to say, I would not like my picture taken. Also, when they signed for their children, they were informed of how the media would be used. I know, I might have made a big deal out of nothing, but I think I learned a little bit about everyday ethics of PR in my field.