Looking for:
– Section 3 –
We are thrilled to announce our Fall Trimester will begin Monday, September 9th. Department of Education, Office of Educational Technology.
Spying on Students: School-Issued Devices and Student Privacy | Electronic Frontier Foundation
May 19, Develop school and district-wide policies and procedures to evaluate proposed online service providers. F ood Distribution for Students. ELA and Humanities: On October 9th, all 6th grade students will come together for a joint project in ELA and Humanities in which they debate potential solutions to water crises around the world. See full survey in Appendix.
Find a Job | USAGov.BP Clinton Hill Middle – SY Updates
Enrollment information will be shared soon. Summer Reading. Have they signed in yet? For summer, students are asked to read at least 2 books this summer and complete the two assignments on google classroom. There are resources for recommended free ebooks, audiobooks, CHMS book club opportunities, and school-wide competitions!
On Tuesday and Wednesday, students will have the option to join faculty and other students to hang out and be together. On Tuesday, June 16th from pm, and Wednesday, June 17th from am, 8th grade students will remotely present their Capstone Projects to small audiences of peers, faculty members, and family.
The format will be slightly different than regular student-led conferences, but students and families should be present. Please reach out to chmscoordinator brooklynprospect.
See more details on flyer! On Thursday, June 18th, CHMS will honor our 6th grade students with non- academic superlatives and recognition of the qualities that students bring into our community! We’re looking forward to see you there! Students will compete in a series of fun games on Zoom. Please join us for a virtual Moving Up Ceremony on June 19th at 6pm. Also, please prepare for us to ask families to present students with their certificates.
Week of June 15thth. Today students completed their final day of remote live courses for this school year! Next week students will partake in a final advisory, conferences, Field Day and more.
Curbside Summer Reading Pickup. We are working to provide an opportunity for families to do optional curbside pick-up of some summer reading books during the week of June 22nd. At that time families can also return any school books if you are stopping by. We will send out more information and a sign-up survey soon.
In the meantime, if you have questions or thoughts please email Ms. Pereira at jpereira brooklynprospect. Let’s Be Together. There has been so much going on, and we feel it, too. All while figuring out remote learning!
We want to give you a chance to voice your needs and concerns. Earlier this month, certificates were mailed out and should have arrived this week or will be arriving in the next few days. As the mail is unpredictable during this time, we will be sharing individual files of student’s certificates next week that can be printed in case they do not arrive in time.
We are tentatively planning to have students pick up their locker belongings during the week of June 22nd. We will share our finalized plans and dates that families can pick-up locker items outside of the building. Capstone Presentations. See assigned presentation slot and Zoom links. We hope to see you all to celebrate and honor our talented students of Clinton Hill. This is an exciting occasion that we are proud to host and would love for our CHMS family to be a part of this moment.
More details to follow. Click on the tutoring or activities ZOOM link:. Enrichment Activities: Enrichment Activities Password: fun. CH student and to be allowed into the class. All families are encouraged to participate. See our tentative schedule below. If you have any questions or concerns, contact chmsafterschool brooklynprospect. Please join us as we celebrate the ending of our school year.
Please see the flyer below for more details! Time: 3PM-4PM. Why: we want to end the year by coming together to enjoy music and Fun. Also we are going to learn about a celebration that is a part of American history.
Activities: Prizes for the Winners. What is Juneteenth? Student Dance Battle. Staff Dance off. A Note from Principal DeLuca. Click here for a note from Principal DeLuca.
Next week is the last week of live classes and assignments for students. During the week of June 15th th, students will partake in a final advisory, field day, conferences and more. See full June calendar of events here. Sign up HERE. Coronavirus Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer. Students in families that already have EBT cards will receive these payments directly through those cards.
Families that do not have active EBT cards will have their benefits sent via mail. We are not able to update our systems with temporary mailing addresses. More information can be found here and further questions can be directed to otda. PEBT otda. Today is the last day to submit a student photo and family message for the Moving Up Ceremony. Due to template constraints, messages to students will need to be within 50 words.
If multiple messages are submitted, our Program Office team will edit the messages down to fit this constraint. Additionally, the photo should be recent and only of your student. Last week, we shared that course preferences for rising 7th grade World Language would be done in advisory last Monday. Course selections will be postponed to Monday, June 8th.
If your student is Absent on Monday, be sure to reach out their advisor and chmscoordinator brooklynprospect. Please stay tuned for more upcoming details! Stay tuned for the fun! Meanwhile, continue to engage in our weekly remote enrichment learning by clicking here update and viewing our June – Week Two schedule below. Click on our weekly enrichment update and start exploring now! Whole School. Live Enrichment Learning. Live Class on June 4th. Earlier this year, June 4th was scheduled as a professional development day for faculty.
Given the shortened school year, classes will be held and assignments are due as normal on Thursday, June 4th. End of Year June Calendar. Week of June – No live classes or assignments. Optional enrichment classes. Details below. Thursday, June 18 – 6th Grade Awards Ceremony. Friday, June 19 – Last day of school. Parent Support Meeting, June 3rd, 5pm.
We will discuss support needed and cover a topic of the week. Wednesday, June 3, we will be discussing summer break, summer enrichment opportunities, and any other requested support. This will be the final parent support meeting for the school year. Can’t make ? Email aweaver brooklynprospect. Prospect Schools Family Presentation.
Please join Prospect Schools CEO, Daniel Rubenstein, and other network leaders as we close out the school year and share updates and information.
To sign up, please register through Eventbrite here. The Zoom dial-in and video call information will be provided in your registration confirmation email. We hope you can make it! See assigned presentation slot and more details here. Moving Up Ceremony – Friday, June 19th, 6pm. The Moving Up Ceremony will begin at 6pm and will be hosted in Zoom. An invitation to the graduation will follow next week. The event will include faculty and student speakers as well as a Musical Theatre performance.
Please expect these to come in the mail in the next few weeks. For the upcoming school year, rising 7th grade students will be able to express course preferences in World Language. Next fall, students will begin studying Mandarin or Spanish for a full year.
In Live Advisory sessions on Monday, June 1st, students will submit their course preferences. Therefore, please work to make personal selections that are honest and accurate. Weeks of May 4th – June 19th. Please continue to stay tuned for the fun! Meanwhile, continue to engage in our weekly remote enrichment learning by clicking here update and viewing our June – Week One schedule below. End of Year Updates. As we approach the end of the school year, we are excited to acknowledge our students and their hard work this year.
During the week of June 15 through June 19 we will be on an alternate schedule full of joyful meetings, enrichment opportunities and student celebrations. The last day of live classes and regular assignments will be Friday, June 12th.
Below are some key dates in June. Friday, June 5 – Last day to make up missing assignments. Friday, June 12 – Last day of classes and work from week of June is due. Week of June No live classes or assignments. Spring Advisory Conferences. Optional enrichment classes all week. While we are currently remote and physically apart, we hope our Clinton Hill Middle School community still feels together during this time.
Spring Grading. Earlier this week we shared some updates to Spring grading. See full update on our Classroom Pages here. We will be observing Memorial Day next Monday. There will be no live classes or advisory. Assignments for the rest of the week will be posted on Tuesday, May 26th. Translations are available here. We look forward to seeing more faces of our CHMS students next week and beyond.
Meanwhile, continue to engage in our weekly remote enrichment learning by clicking here update and viewing our Week Four schedule below. We hope you and your families are all doing well and staying safe.
As we continue through this global crisis, we thank you all again for your patience as we work through what remote learning will look like.
We wanted to share an update on how we will be determining grades for the Spring semester. Both Brooklyn Prospect middle schools aligned on this decision so that each school will be moving forward in the same way. Some guiding principles we kept in mind while making this decision were:.
We are in a different context, so our approach to grading is going to be different. With that, we are going to align with the NYC Department of Education and instead of giving traditional grades on report cards, we will report different categories, based on the following criteria:.
Needs Improvement – would not have passed the class based on grades under In Progress – would not have passed the class based on grades, and will have the opportunity to continue learning during summer school. Students who currently have an overall grade of 65 or under will be able to make up old achievement assignments to help boost that grade. We are so proud of all the hard work that all our students have been putting in during this time and are confident that the work you have been doing is meaningful and worthwhile of all our time.
We also fully recognize that so many of you, families and students, have been under an enormous level of stress and dealing with varying levels of anxiety. It is sometimes okay to prioritize family and mental health over making sure every single assignment is completed to perfection.
Our students have raised concerns about recent injustices, from the brutal killings of innocent black men and women, to COVID, highlighting the effects of systemic racism in our country. Tying in to the work that we did around Black Lives Matter Week of Action in February, we will be sharing resources with families and opening up optional student circles to process, converse, and support one another during this difficult time.
If you are interested in getting involved, please reach out to Anne Weaver aweaver brooklynprospect. Hello Families – thanks for your participation in Sip and Support during this remote learning time! It has been great connecting with you all via zoom or email as we go through this process together! Our last session will be on June 3 at 5pm. More details to follow, but if you need any support before then, reach out aweaver brooklynprospect.
Please take action and tell your elected officials that you support more federal funding for NY students and schools. Your response will make a difference. Without that aid, public schools like ours will pay a further price.
As a community, we must stand together and tell our elected officials that New York’s children cannot, and should not, bear the burden of this crisis. Perhaps now more than ever, our students need the safety and support of fully funded schools. End of Year 8th Grade Events. Our Clinton Hill Middle School faculty and staff is working hard to celebrate our 8th grade students in remote celebrations.
We’ll be sharing out more details soon. Calling all 8th grade students interested in designing a class t-shirt. Designs are being accepted from now, until pm Saturday, May 23rd. If you would like to submit a design to possibly be used for our t-shirt, please email your design to asijabailey brooklynprospect. There are some guidelines you must follow in order for your design to be added:.
The entire design must be in ONE color only; any color is acceptable, but you cannot have more than one color in your design. The shirt color will either be black or gray. We haven’t decided yet, so chose a design color that would best fit the color of the t-shirt. If you do not want to design on the website directly, you can design it on any other digital platform you wish. Just please make sure the design is in a digital format that can be emailed to me.
Hand drawings will not be accepted. Your design must be school appropriate. Make sure you are using appropriate and encouraging language in your designs, as well as providing appropriate visuals. Designs that do not meet this expectation, will not be accepted. That block will be broken into half, meaning there are 2 events happening every day. See schedule with links here. These activities are for CHMS students and faculty only. Please respect this so we have space for everyone. Students must be visible on camera to be admitted to rooms.
Behavior expectations are the same as for all other classes. Students may lose privilege to join activities if they consistently violate room expectations. Daily PE Sessions from am for All. We are thrilled to extend an invite to non-PE students into our daily sessions from AM.
Week 1 was super fun, and the more the merrier! That being said, we’d like to see more familiar faces, and any student currently taking Dance can join PE for these energetic morning sessions, as well. Looking forward to seeing some new student-athletes on Monday morning! Password: azersky all lowercase. A preview of our workouts can be found here. Check out the Week 2 tab. We will discuss supports needed and cover a topic of the week.
Wednesday May 13, Ms. Jessica Ruperto-Rivera will join us to discuss high school resources, information and be available for any questions families may have. Steinberg, Ms. Craig and Ms. Camero showed off their kickboxing skills! Come next Tuesday at for another opportunity to hang out with your friends. It was a great success, especially seeing our students engaged in the amazing activities created by our Enrichment Facilitators. Student Spotlight. We would love to give a huge shout out to our fellow CHMS student, Savannah , for participating in Karate and showing us how it is really done!
We have so much more fun and engaging activities in store for you all. Meanwhile, continue to engage in our weekly remote enrichment learning by viewing next week’s schedule below. Here is the zoom link to enter into each activity: Enrichment Activities password: fun.
Live Learning Update. Live learning is starting in a week! Beginning May 5th, we will be incorporating live class sessions as an opportunity for our students to connect with their classmates, learn from each other, receive real time feedback from teachers, and increase their connection to the school community. You can expect that your child will need to attend one 45 minute class at either am or am every day from Tuesday through Friday, and one afternoon class at either or most days.
Many teachers will be using Nearpod as a tool to have students engage with each other and their material. We are looking forward to this last shift in how our remote learning will look. Our teachers are working hard and passionately for the good of our students, but this is new for all of us, so thank you in advance as we work through some hiccups that may arise we get started with this new format! Attendance During Remote Learning. Currently, student attendance is being tracked using assignment completion.
Every 3 missed assignments for a given week, equates to one absence. Once we begin live sessions, a combination of live session attendance along with missed assignments will be input into TeacherEase. Please keep in mind that we are only using the attendance metric to help us measure engagement during this time.
Additionally, as a reminder, New York City has noted that 7th grade attendance will not be used for next year’s high school placement process. Please email chmscoordinator brooklynprospect.
Book Club Opportunity. Feeling bored and looking for something relaxing and new to try? Want to connect with your schoolmates and teachers? Ran out of stuff to read at home? Join Ms. Pereira and Ms. Marchena next week Tuesday from for a whole school read aloud book club of J. To participate in the book club, just show up in Ms.
Marchena will host this every Tuesday at and will also share the videos, in case you miss it one week and want to catch up. If you have any questions or suggestions for other books for us to use for other book club read alouds, feel free to email Ms. The Tales of Beedle the Bard teaser: As familiar to many Hogwarts students as Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty are to Muggle children, The Tales of Beedle the Bard is a collection of popular stories written for young wizards and witches.
More information here. Parent Support with Ms. We will have a check in, discuss supports needed, and cover a topic of the week. This week the 8th Grade Level Gathering was a virtual scavenger hunt! Students searched for items stated by Ms. Rudnick and tried to find those items the quickest they could!
Despite a few glitches, it was really nice seeing all of your students with over 60 students joining! We hope to see even more students next week on Friday pm! This week the 7th Grade Level Gathering was a virtual hangout and trivia game!
Students answered trivia questions on Kahoot and gave book, TV show, and movie recommendations to their peers. We had over 80 participants — students and teachers! Join us next Tuesday in costume for our 6th grade gathering in Ms. Pereira’s Personal Zoom Room Password: pereira — Sign in with your real name and enable your camera to gain entry.
We will have a contest for best costumes. Dress up as your favorite something person, character from a book or movie, favorite food or favorite anything! If you can’t come up with a costume idea, you can also show up in a Wacky Tacky costume– wear the weirdest wackiest outfit you can. This week the 6th Grade Level Gathering was a virtual dance party!
Students submitted song recommendations and danced with their classmates and teachers. Check out the 6th grade social google classroom for more details for future events. See some of our 6th grade teachers showing their best dance moves below! Prospect Schools School Closure Update. In accordance with new guidance issued on Thursday, April 16 by Governor Cuomo, Prospect Schools will extend school closure through May 15, All schools across the state will remain closed throughout this time period.
We will continue with our remote learning program and will share any updates regarding further school closure as we receive guidance from the State. Live Learning Starting Soon. Over the next couple of weeks, our faculty and staff are going to be working to adapt some of our lessons so that we can go live. Bookmark the Coronavirus Resource Page.
Brooklyn Prospect has created a central resource for all coronavirus-related information and updates. Please bookmark this page so you can easily access network updates regarding school closure, school food, and tech distribution, along with FAQs and a recording of this week’s family webinar. For CHMS specific updates, be sure to visit our school website here. F ood Distribution for Students. Any New Yorker who wants one can get three free meals a day at more than Meal Hubs across the city.
No one will be turned away at any time. All adults and children can pick up three meals at one time. Vegetarian and halal options available at all sites. No dining space is available, so meals must be eaten off premises. Parents and guardians may pick up meals for their children. No registration or ID required.
If you cannot go out to get food, no one can bring you food, and you are not able to use private delivery options, New York City will deliver emergency meals to you in the coming days.
Check your eligibility and sign up here. We look forward to seeing more of our CHMS children faces so in weeks to come we will offer more live enrichment. Meanwhile, continue to engage in our weekly remote enrichment learning. During this time CHMS is providing enrichment assignments and programming to continue opportunities for learning, engagement and social connectivity.
Enrichment assignments have already been posted on Google Classroom and are accessible now. Additionally, upon return from break, we will continue with remote learning until at least April 29th.
If you have any questions, please reach out to chmscoordinator brooklynprospect. After-School Spring Break Enrichment. Over the spring break period, our after-school staff and leadership team will provide enrichment assignments and programming to honor Governor Cuomo’s stay at home order. Students and families should continue to stay at home as much as possible and practice social distancing. How Do I Join? Tutoring: Tutoring Session password: tutor.
Enrichment Activities: Enrichment Activities password: tutor. Click here for a brief description of all enrichment activities for this week. All students who were enrolled in the Algebra class and pass it will receive HS course credit and an exemption for the Algebra regents.
New York City has also noted that 7th grade attendance will not be used for HS placement for next year’s placement process. The Brooklyn Prospect High School team has prepared a three step process for students to select their courses for next year. The deadline for submission is April 24th! The presentation reviews the course offerings, the credits you need for graduation, and the process for requesting courses. If you’d prefer to just review the slides, they are available here.
We recommend you listen to the narration. Step 2: Read through the Course Catalog to learn more about the courses and finalize your decision. Questions should be submitted directly to the form and a high school counselor will get back to you via email.
Ahead of our second week of remote learning, there have been a few operational updates from Brooklyn Prospect and the NYC Department of Education.
Google Classroom Tech Issues. Brooklyn Prospect is now offering a hotline x for any tech issues your student may be experiencing on Google Classrooms between 9am to 5pm, Monday through Friday. For any content specific questions, students should continue to attend office hours in Zoom Rooms.
See here. Additionally, if your student has limited or no access to a device or wifi to complete their work, please reach out to Courtney Sakamoto csakamoto brooklynprospect. Food Distribution for Students. Starting on Monday March 23rd, grab and go meals will only be available at sites. Find the list of sites here. Poor login and password management practices using PII were of particular concern. According to another parent:. The passwords are defaulted to student ID.
Students are not allowed to change these passwords, and they have received emails stating that students are to stop attempting to change passwords. In addition to imposing surveillance on students at home as well as in the classroom, 14 ed tech had the potential to make other members of the household feel vulnerable.
One public school parent in Pennsylvania wrote about their student accessing ed tech services on a personal device:. I have no idea how to find out the extent of information they [ed tech providers] have access to on our personal computers.
Another parent in a Virginia public school was concerned about their student using a school-issued device at home:. The students are required to use the laptops at home for assignments, but that could expose our home networks to the school system.
Student data—or, more broadly, data collected on students in the course of educational activities at school, at home, and elsewhere—may interact with advertising, drive inferences and profiles about individual students, or be shared with third parties. All stakeholders—students, parents, teachers, administrators, and other staff alike—faced an overwhelming number and range of ed tech apps, softwares, programs, and services. Of the ed tech services reported to us, only had published privacy policies online.
Some applications note that schools may implement their own privacy policies to govern personal data submitted to the services by student users. Of the privacy policies, 78 mention data retention practices.
Few privacy policies address deletion of data after periods of inactivity, which would allow the applications to retain information even after students graduate. We found a range of specific practices here, including:. Of the privacy policies we examined, only 46 state that the vendor uses encryption. That means that only about 30 percent of the services reported to us make any statement about encryption.
This lines up with previous reports on the lack of support for encryption in ed tech. Encryption is crucial to protect sensitive student information from eavesdropping, and encrypting data in transit is widely recognized as absolutely necessary for even a minimal level of security.
However, among the policies we investigated, encryption was most often only mentioned in connection with protecting the billing information of clients. Generally, policies gave little information about encryption protocols or which data a given service encrypts.
Of the privacy policies, only 51 mention de-identification or aggregation of user data. Data de-identification is almost exclusively mentioned in connection with providing information to third parties about their services, reporting on student performance in districts, or analyzing use of their services.
Parents who acted on their concerns to opt their children out of technology were met with multiple hurdles. Even in schools with opt-out policies on the books, families struggled to opt their children out of technology use.
One parent from an Arizona private school wrote, simply:. I personally spoke with the teachers at my school about technical judgments and hesitations I had.
They were fully willing to allow me to use alternative means of technology. However, no alternatives were set up. No parents have inquired about opt-out yet, but we do not have a plan in place for if and when this does happen. The difficulty of putting opt-out into practice can come from the additional burden it puts on administrators and teachers who have adopted increasingly digital pedagogical systems.
As technology becomes more and more baked into lesson plans and day-to-day teaching, it can be difficult for students or teachers to function without using school-issued devices or ed tech programs. At a school issuing Chromebooks, one Iowa public school parent observed:.
Most homework must be done with these laptops. Even if we used alternatives, the formats required for teachers to read assignments would make it difficult for students to submit on paper. When technology is a critical part of learning, insufficient opt-out options can mean students end up with a lower-quality or even discriminatory classroom experience.
For example, one parent described refusing to let their child complete homework online, and their child receiving lower grades as a result. A public school parent in Pennsylvania wrote:. Even when they functioned as written, opt-out policies may not have left room for parents to make specific allowances for some ed tech activities and opt out of others. The agreements are legacy agreements that were issued to get permission from parents to allow students to use wifi.
They never updated the agreement, and now use it as blanket permission for anything that occurs online. For such families, the common opt-out alternative of using a personal device rather than a school-issued device is impossible. Parents as well as students felt this lack of choices. One student wrote:. Giving parents and students the option to opt out of classroom technology use is a necessary—but not sufficient—component of protecting student privacy.
In an ideal world, schools and ed tech providers would provide students with technology so beneficial and privacy-friendly that they and their parents would not even want to opt out. In a rural, partly Amish district in Indiana, schools are rapidly adopting ed tech. Eric M. In addition to G Suite for Education, students use software from major publishers like McGraw Hill and Pearson as well as software from smaller vendors like Mobymax, Achieve, and Nearpod. Eric and his colleagues have taken several steps to protect students and support teachers—chief among them providing a strong opt-out system.
In order to respect the religious and cultural views of students, the schools are well-practiced in providing hard-copy options and alternative assignments. The district is also prepared should students abuse technology with behavior such as bullying. Families may change their opt-out status each year. Survey respondents described varying levels of trust in ed tech companies as well as schools and districts themselves. Although the service providers Google, Microsoft, major publishers, etc.
One public school parent in Wisconsin wrote:. Is data destroyed after my student leaves the district? Does Google own this data? Can they build a profile on my student? These are all questions that should be answered.
Students showed the least trust in schools, ed tech vendors, and their policies. This lack of trust translated into increased caution and even chilling effects when students used school-issued devices and ed tech programs. For many parents and students, privacy policies and even legislation were simply not enough. When Matt L. For example, a system-wide update gave Matt an opportunity to propose concurrent changes in ed tech implementation.
Matt remains persistent and committed to advocating for more secure, more private student systems. Survey responses showed that multiple stakeholders did not think existing technology and privacy training for teachers was keeping up with the increasing role of technology in the classroom. Even the best policies and legislation are rendered toothless if staff members, administrators, and teachers are not equipped to implement them correctly.
Parents overwhelmingly saw teachers and other school staff as unaware and non-expert in technology. A public school teacher in New Mexico wrote:.
Another public school teacher, this one in Florida, described the lack of training and knowledge as a district-wide issue:. The county does not seem to be deliberately ignoring privacy concerns, but just lacks general knowledge about ongoing discussions about student privacy.
Many observed a tension between a need for more thorough training and a lack of the funding, resources, and staffing to make that training readily available.
The teachers who responded to the survey were acutely aware that, even without adequate training, they were still regarded as the first line of defense in protecting student privacy. As a school librarian at a small K district in Illinois, Angela K. Trained as educators, privacy specialists, and technologists, school librarians like Angela bring not only the skills but also a professional mandate to lead their communities in privacy and intellectual freedom.
In search of a balance between technology use and privacy protection, Angela is asking hard, fundamental questions about ed tech. Is it giving us the same results as something non-technological? How do we take advantage of these tools while keeping information private and being aware of what we might be giving away?
Angela wants to see more direct education around privacy concepts and expectations, and not just for students. Teachers and other staff in her district would benefit as well. However, compartmentalized curricula are not enough to transform the way students interact with technology; it has to be reinforced across subjects throughout the school year. Teachers also need training to understand the risks of technology in the classroom. In the absence of more thorough professional training, Angela sees teachers and administrators overwhelmed with the task of considering privacy in their teaching.
Angela fears that without better privacy education and awareness, students’ intellectual freedom will suffer. Most students who responded to the survey were unsure of what ed tech meant for them and why they should care. Just as staff need training to implement ed tech services with digital privacy in mind, students need enhanced education to safely use such services.
I am confused about the specifics of what my technology rights are as a student. Technology is confusing, and I know little about how my data is stored and how that affects me. I feel like in order to start using these devices, we should be taking courses to understand them first.
On the other end of the spectrum, student respondents who were acutely aware of privacy issues were most concerned that their peers were unaware of—or worse, apathetic about—the threats ed tech posed to their digital privacy.
One particularly tech-savvy student wrote:. This means its over signatories 19 have made what appears to be an essentially binding commitment to its 12 provisions. The problems with the Student Privacy Pledge are not in its 12 large, bold commitment statements, but in the fine-print definitions under them. However, SIIA, a principal developer of the Pledge, argued to the contrary and said that the Pledge permits providers to collect data on students on general audience websites even if students are using their school accounts.
Unfortunately, the FTC has taken no action that we are aware of to date. It forbids schools from disclosing student information without parental consent, but it has limitations: it only applies to certain types of student information and there are exceptions that can be exploited. The law is enforced by the U. Department of Education, which can cut off funding to noncompliant schools. FERPA generally prohibits school districts from sharing student information with third parties without written parental consent.
The ease with which ed tech providers can take advantage of the school official exception described above prevents FERPA from going far enough to protect student data. A key question in the education context is whether a school district can provide consent to collect student data to a company on behalf of the parents, or whether the company must get consent directly from the parents.
Student privacy has been a priority in state legislatures in recent years, with 49 states and the District of Columbia introducing bills addressing student privacy since Of those, 36 states have passed 73 student privacy bills into law. Next we discuss Colorado and Connecticut, both of which took the new step of distinguishing between third parties with which schools do and do not have contracts.
In short, ed tech companies cannot create student profiles or target students for non-educational purposes. But when students are logged into their Google account and navigate outside of the education apps, SOPIPA permits the company to collect student behavioral data for a variety of purposes, including serving ads. SOPIPA may also allow a company to collect a broad array of browser data when students are logged into a device e.
While SOPIPA leaves large loopholes open and questions unanswered, it also paved the way for other states to build on it in their own student privacy legislation. When schools do enter a contract with third-party service providers, the law requires clauses specifying that student data is to be deleted when no longer needed for purposes of the contract, limiting the use of student information to noncommercial purposes specified in the contract, and specifying penalties for noncompliance.
SDTSA also takes steps to improve transparency by requiring that the state board of education and local schools publish on their websites the type of data points collected by third-party service providers, including why each data point is collected, how it is used, and why it is shared.
This makes important privacy-related information more easily accessible to students, their parents, and any other concerned parties. Further, the law requires that all district and charter schools adopt a student privacy and data protection policy. To help schools that have less local capacity, the state Department of Education must provide them with a sample policy, including protocols for maintenance of a student data index, retention and destruction of student personally identifiable information, use of student personally identifiable information, prevention of security breaches, requirements for contracting with service providers, and disclosure of PII.
The law contains a nonexclusive list of data points that qualify as student information, including email addresses, disciplinary records, test results, health records, biometric information, food purchases, and text messages. The law also sets out requirements for school contracts with service providers. Any time a local or regional board of education plans to share student data with a service provider, the board must enter into a written contract with the service provider. The law contains a nonexclusive list of terms that the contract must contain, including a statement that student information does not belong to the service provider, a description of means through which the board may request deletion of student information, and a statement that the service provider will ensure the security and confidentiality of student information.
These contract provisions extend to ensuring parents are notified promptly. Each time a contract is executed with a contractor, the regional school board must notify any student affected by the contract, as well as their parents, within five business days. At both the state and federal level, tighter legislation is needed to close loopholes and give school districts the structure and resources necessary to provide transparency and choice to students and their families.
Industry self-regulation like the Student Privacy Pledge does not go far enough to remedy such loopholes. The ed tech industry has moved faster than legislation aimed at protecting student privacy. Ensuring student privacy requires participation from a number of stakeholders. Below, we outline specific recommendations and best practices.
After making recommendations for school policies and communications, we turn our attention to various school stakeholders, including administrators, teachers, librarians, system administrators, parents, and students. We conclude with best practices for ed tech companies.
This section draws on common pitfalls EFF has seen in parental disclosure forms, Acceptable Use Policies AUPs , opt-out practices, and other procedures that shape what students and parents know about ed tech in their school or district, and what choices they are able to make based on that information.
With this in mind, we offer suggestions for better, more privacy-conscious school policies and communication. School administrators are under pressure to employ technology to improve student performance. But when at the negotiating table with ed tech vendors, administrators must balance that pressure with their responsibility to protect the privacy of their students. Enter into a written contract or legal agreement with service providers when possible.
These contracts should include provisions on security, collection, use, retention, disclosure, destruction, access, and modification of data. Because the Terms of Service may change without notice, schools and districts should regularly re-read the terms to be aware of any relevant changes. The Department of Education has published a useful resource that offers specific guidance for schools and administrators as they evaluate potential Terms of Service agreements from service providers.
Build local capacity to evaluate ed tech services. Do not rely on outside sources alone—like the Student Privacy Pledge or other evaluations—when determining which vendor to work with. Instead, draw from multiple resources as well as an independent evaluation when choosing ed tech services. Develop school and district-wide policies and procedures to evaluate proposed online service providers. District and school leadership, as well as teachers, should be aware of how services can be approved and who has the authority to enter into agreements with providers.
This evaluation process should take into consideration privacy and security concerns relating to the services. As new services are adopted, maintain a publicly accessible list of all the vendors that the school or district partners with, along with the corresponding privacy policies and any school or district evaluation.
Ask the right questions. Examine potential ed tech partners with a critical eye. In addition to thinking about pedagogy and learning benefits, ask questions about data collection, privacy, and transparency. Some questions to think about include:. Notify parents. Be transparent with parents and students regarding how the school or district—and third-party vendors and companies—collect, share, protect, and use student data.
The school or district should not sign students up for any service without getting explicit permission from their parents. Provide choices. Provide meaningful opt-out processes that give parents and students control over their use of technology in the classroom.
Prepare teachers and other staff to provide educationally comparable alternative assignments and activities for students who choose to opt out. Teachers play the role of intermediaries between students and the technology being deployed in classrooms. In addition to administering technology directly to students, teachers can integrate digital literacy and privacy education across their existing curricula. Make digital literacy part of the curriculum. Ensure that students are learning basic digital privacy and security techniques while utilizing new ed tech tools, including creating strong passphrases for their online accounts.
Advocate for better training for teachers. The best way to sharpen your expertise and protect your students is to enhance your own professional privacy knowledge. Get parental consent. Refrain from signing students up for services without getting explicit written consent from parents. Pick ed tech tools carefully. Exercise caution when choosing what devices, platforms, services, or websites to use in the classroom. When tools are available for free on the web, for example, it can be tempting to adopt and use them in an ad hoc manner.
Find allies. If you are concerned about a particular technology and its privacy implications, find allies amongst your colleagues. Seek out other staff who share your concerns and coordinate with them to better advocate for student privacy across your school or district.
With professional training and ethical commitments that prioritize user privacy, school librarians are in a unique position to advocate for student privacy. Limit personal information collection and retention to the bare minimum required to provide services, and ensure that it is stored in an encrypted form. Critically, the library privacy policy should also detail when student library records can be shared and with whom.
Go above and beyond privacy law. FERPA, however, does not require schools to create or retain any such records. Whether ed tech services are adopted top-down by large contracts with the administration or bottom-up by individual teachers in single classrooms, librarians can be a central resource for investigating their privacy risks.
In addition to getting involved with large-scale contract negotiations, think about how to ensure the quality and safety of websites, apps, and services adopted on a more ad hoc basis by teachers.
Survey staff to get an idea of who is using what services, and periodically review them. Do third-party services respect school policies? Are they in compliance with applicable state law? Get a seat at the negotiating table. Advocate for student privacy at every stage, but especially before new software and devices are adopted.
Librarians have the training and experience to approach vendor relations and contract decisions with student privacy in mind. When your district negotiates contracts with a new ed tech vendor, find out how to be involved in the process. Educate staff, colleagues, teachers, and decision makers about student privacy. Initiate conversations about student privacy with colleagues at all levels. The school or district might create policies and processes that threaten student privacy.
This presents an opportunity to educate decision makers about the value of student privacy and the danger of violating it, as well as about how to better craft policy in the future.
In addition to teaching within the library, share resources with teachers to encourage reinforcing digital privacy lessons across classes and curricula. Lock down privacy settings. Do not trust defaults. For schools using Google services, you can start by referring to our guides on Google accounts 44 and Chromebooks.
Generate and administer strong logins and passwords. One common pitfall to avoid in ed tech implementation is weak logins and passwords. Generally, such weak credentials include personally identifiable information such as student ID, first and last name, date of birth, etc. Take control of password generation and administration to make sure students have strong, randomly generated passwords. Even better, educate students in strong password management and require them to create a new password when they first log in.
Be a resource for selecting ed tech tools. Based on the inquiries we receive regularly at EFF, it is clear that parents across the country are concerned about the privacy implications of technology in the classroom. Parents are in a strong position to advocate to schools and districts on behalf of their children. Push for opt-out alternatives. Outline your privacy concerns to the school or district and ask for options to opt out of technology use, or to use different devices or software.
If opt-out processes are not in place, advocate for their creation. You can find allies both locally within your school or district as well as elsewhere through national networks of other concerned parents. Some tips for connecting with parents locally include:. Below, we provide a few recommendations for students to act to preserve their personal data privacy:.
Finally, we provide best practices for ed tech companies, both for providing ed tech services in a privacy-conscious manner and for respecting student privacy on other, non-educational services. Unfortunately, despite seeming to promise not to track students, the only categorical commitment Google makes is to only refrain from displaying targeted ads to students on Google properties. Providers can implement the recommendations below while realizing their mission to improve student academic performance.
Data collection. Get written opt-in consent from parents—or, at the bare minimum, offer opt-out—if you intend to collect data for product improvement. If data must be collected for product improvement, aggregate and anonymize it. Finally, set default settings on devices and software to protect against, rather than allow for, privacy-invasive data collection. The U. As a result, service providers should exercise extreme caution before following the suggestions in the Department of Education’s guide.
Data use. Describe the different purposes for which various types of student data will be used. No student data, including covered information and persistent unique identifiers, should be used to engage in targeted advertising or to create profiles of students.
Ensure that all student data is at least encrypted in transit, and employ current best practices to implement HTTPS, encrypt data at rest, and secure student accounts. Data retention.
Data should only be retained for the duration that a student uses the service, or for a duration specified by the school or district, and then promptly deleted. Sharing and third parties. When disclosing information to other service providers and third parties, verify their privacy policies and practices. In particular, ensure that third parties do not further disclose student information.
When disclosing information to researchers in particular, confirm that the disclosure is permissible under federal and state law or that the disclosure is directed by a school, district, or state education department. Finally, describe in your privacy policy all third parties with which student information is shared, what information is shared, and the purpose of sharing it. Whenever possible, obtain explicit written consent from parents before sharing.
If a service links or in any way directs students to other websites or service providers, also disclose these referrals in your privacy policy. Working with districts. Go further to implement safeguards to prevent weak passwords e. Engage with school staff and system administrators to educate them on privacy safeguards and privacy-conscious uses of a given ed tech service. Make privacy policies as detailed and understandable as possible.
The policies should be conspicuous, readable in plain language , available in a single location, and not embedded in Terms of Service or Terms and Conditions statements. Include at least the following points:. The policies should contain a privacy contact for users to get in touch with providers regarding privacy practices.
In addition to privacy policies, include privacy-related information as part of user interfaces when appropriate. While schools are eagerly embracing digital devices and services in the classroom—and ed tech vendors are racing to meet the demand—student privacy is not receiving the attention it deserves.
Together, our survey testimony and legal analysis offer a user-focused approach to defining the problems and risks around student privacy, particularly lack of transparency, lack of choice, and a technical landscape that has outpaced legal safeguards. As our recommendations outline, parents, students, and school staff can take effective action to advocate for and raise awareness about student privacy.
Ultimately, however, meaningful improvements in student data protection will require changes in state and federal law, in school and district priorities, and in ed tech company policies and practices. Are parents provided with written disclosures about data collection such as a privacy policy? Join EFF Lists. Electronic Frontier Foundation. By Gennie Gebhart. In particular, we found that in an alarming number of cases, ed tech suffered from: Lack of transparency.
Parents were kept in the dark about what apps their kids were required to use and what data was being collected. Investigative burdens. With no notice or help from schools, the investigative burden fell on parents and even students to understand the privacy implications of the technology they were using.
Data concerns. Parents had extensive concerns about student data collection, retention, and sharing. We investigated the ed tech services that survey respondents reported were in use in classrooms in their community, and found that their privacy policies were lacking in encryption, data retention, and data sharing policies.
Lack of choice. Parents who sought to opt their children out of device or software use faced many hurdles, particularly those without the resources to provide their own alternatives. Parents and students, on the other hand, wanted concrete evidence that student data was protected in practice as well as in policy.
Need for digital privacy training and education. Both students and teachers voiced a desire for better training in privacy-conscious technology use. We address: Industry self-regulation. The Student Privacy Pledge, enforced by the FTC and voluntarily signed by ed tech companies, features glaring loopholes in its definitions of what constitutes “student information” and “educational service providers.
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As students across the United States are handed school-issued laptops job educating students, teachers, and administrators on privacy. As we approach the end of the school year, we are excited to acknowledge our students and their hard work this year. During the week of June 15 through June