Escaping HTML with datatables

I have datatables set up like so :

<tbody>
					
					<?php $options = array("" => "", 'start' => 'Start Session', 'stop' => 'Student Not Present', 'abandon' => 'End Session', );
					foreach ($waiting as $row) 
					{ 
						?>                
					<tr>
						<td><?php echo htmlspecialchars($row['id'], ENT_QUOTES, 'UTF-8'); ?></td>				
						<td><?php echo anchor('studentqueue_controller/history/'.urlencode($row['anum']). '', htmlspecialchars($row['anum'], ENT_QUOTES, 'UTF-8'), 'target="_blank"'); ?></td>
						<td><?php echo htmlspecialchars($row['first'], ENT_QUOTES, 'UTF-8'); ?></td>
						<td><?php echo htmlspecialchars($row['last'], ENT_QUOTES, 'UTF-8'); ?></td>
						<td><?php echo htmlspecialchars($row['SECOND'], ENT_QUOTES, 'UTF-8'); ?></td>
						<td><?php echo htmlspecialchars($row['reason'], ENT_QUOTES, 'UTF-8'); ?></td>
						<td><?php echo htmlspecialchars($row['studentcomments'], ENT_QUOTES, 'UTF-8'); ?></td>
						<td><?php echo htmlspecialchars($row['aidyear'], ENT_QUOTES, 'UTF-8'); ?></td>
						<td><?php echo htmlspecialchars($row['counselorcomments'], ENT_QUOTES, 'UTF-8'); ?></td>
						<td>
							<?php echo form_open('studentqueue_controller/counselorscreen/' .urlencode($row['id']). ''); ?>
							<?php echo form_dropdown('options', $options, ""); ?>
							<?php echo form_submit('submit', 'Submit'); ?>
							<?php echo form_close(); ?>
						</td>
					</tr>
					
					<?php
					 } ?>
                </tbody>    
 

To my understanding when using datatables ajax source like in this example :

http://www.datatables.net/examples/data_sources/ajax.html

you leave the space in between <tbody> </tbody> empty using the datatables to retrieve the data.

My problem is in the security aspect of this, and all in all how do I allow datatables to do the samething I am currently doing (look at code above) and then have it use ajax processing. I am kind of confused. I also have another question that I would ask but I will ask that after your response to this question.

Also Allen I am very grateful for all your doing. I know you get this a lot, but me and my College are loving the design of DataTables.

The application I am writing might be expanded to serve multiple college offices, and even different colleges. And on all my presentations I get "Those tables look awesome" "I love the search features" so I am very thankful for all you are doing. There are times I get pissed of datatables but thats probably my fault as I suck with client side scripting. I'm a php guy.