Some Indiana districts require permission when parents want to record meetings. Is that legal?

For years, Erin Moon-Walker recorded parent-teacher meetings, both for her own children and for other parents as part of her work as a special education advocate. In her experience, Moon-Walker said recordings serve as a memory aid. They can also help family members who can’t attend an in-person meeting, and settle disputes. So she was alarmed when her school district, West Lafayette Community Schools, brought forward a policy to increase restrictions on the practice. The proposed policy increased notice for recording from two to three days, required permission from the superintendent to record all parent meetings — and, most concerningly, specified that parents who didn’t comply could be removed from school grounds and even face a trespassing violation. Such rules appear to run afoul of Indiana law’s one-party recording laws, which allow conversations to be recorded if only one party consents. The outcry about the broader proposal led the West Lafayette school board to table it until community concerns could be addressed. But a Chalkbeat survey found restrictions on recording parent-teacher meetings are in effect in at least eight other school districts — and legal experts question whether the policies are lawful and enforceable. “You can’t penalize someone for something...