Seattle Schools Community Forum

Going thru all those forms in your student's take-home packet?  Consider the following: - t he FERPA form - you have quite the dilemma.  If you do not approve allowing your student's data to go out, you risk your child not being in the yearbook.  (I find this all pretty silly but I believe this is done to get that data.)  A better directory opt-out form (and one I would have used.)  I think the district could challenge you on this but I think if it's what you submit, well, then you are on record. Here's what they do in one district in Colorado.   I like this one. Also on FERPA, it was amended (by our friend, Arne Duncan) to allow districts and other educational entities to allow any group/person with a "legitimate education interest " access to student data.  Here's something to consider;

This Saturday, Jan. 23rd, will be the last time the old version of the SAT will be given. The newly redesigned SAT will be given for the first time in March.   That one will be the one now aligned to Common Core standards.  Test prep companies say yes - it's creating a lot of anxiety (which may help the folks that give the ACT.)

Back to one of my major concerns - data collection on children and student data privacy. There was an important article published last week at The Answer Sheet at the Washington Post by Leonie Haimson and Cheri Kiesecker who are both public ed advocates and in leadership for the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy , a national alliance of parents and others, standing up for the rights of parents and their students to protect their data. Into the fray, via the Times, comes... Rob McKenna ?  You remember him, former Washington State Attorney General and failed candidate for governor?  Look where he landed? At the Gates-funded Data Quality Campaign.

Thanks to Kelly Powers, RHS PTSA Legislative liaison for this update: Updated K-8 FERPA:  http://www. seattleschools.org/cms/One. aspx?portalId=627&pageId=14407 Updated high school FERPA: http://www.seattleschools.org/ cms/One.aspx?portalId=627& pageId=14407#Legal

Update: in the "We Must Keep Our Standards High" category, from Diane Ravitch: Malala Yousafzai is the Pakistani girl who was shot by the Taliban on her way to school; she survived to became a world-famous advocate for girls’ education.  She won the Nobel Peace Prize for her advocacy and courage.  She decided she wants to go to Stanford University to study politics and philosophy. But Stanford will not accept her unless she takes the SAT and presumably scores the requisite points. I think this is one reason why my husband liked Berkeley over Stanford (he had degrees from both). end of update. Finishing the first early days of the school year ; how goes it? I would urge you to consider carefully the FERPA form you will get in your First Day packet.  Personally, I would sign away as little as I could.  I will verify this but I have been previously told that it is a principal decision about whether students can or cannot be in the student yearbook if ...

I'll lead with this - I urge you to write to the Seattle School Board and tell them to say NO to the agreement witht he City's preschool plan at Wednesday night's Board meeting.  SPSDirectors@seattleschools.org I'll say right now that if this is approved, the district will rue the day they signed onto it.  It is NOT in the best interests of the district and gives the City much more power and control than is necessary.

From Politico : Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) will reintroduce a bill today aiming to better protect student data. Like the bill that House Education and the Workforce Committee leaders Reps. John Kline and Bobby Scott have been putting together, the Markey-Hatch bill would change data privacy by updating the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.   The bill [ http://1.usa.gov/1obyAzv ] would take several steps to bring the long-outdated FERPA into the digital age, including prohibiting tech companies from using student data to target ads. It would also give parents the right to access records about their children held by private companies — and change that information if it’s incorrect. Districts would have to keep lists of outside vendors that hold information on students and make those lists accessible to parents.  There are now two bipartisan bills targeting student privacy, Markey-Hatch and the bill reintroduced recently by Reps...

In what can only be termed "disgraceful," Tewksbury Public Schools accidentally released private student info about the out-of-district placements for 83 Special Ed students and rated parents by their "cooperativeness."  The document had been online for almost a week.  From the Tewksbury Town Crier: In December the district blamed a projected $2 million shortfall for FY2016 on ‘skyrocketing’ out of district costs, and said that it could not implement a proposed free full-day kindergarten program as a result. That action generated distrust and backlash by the special education community, and this most recent release of data has parents ready to file complaints at the state and federal levels. The seven-page memo from Rick Pelletier, Director of Student Services, to the Superintendent was included in the School Committee packet as part of its budget justification package last week. The memo includes a spreadsheet that listed all the students with out of di...

 From Politico's story (and hats off to Politico reporter Stephanie Simon for simply excellent work): When President Barack Obama called earlier this year for a new federal law to protect student privacy in an era when children increasingly learn online, he called the concept “pretty straightforward.” But the bipartisan bill to be introduced Monday — which was drafted in close collaboration with the White House — has proved anything but. The bill lets education technology companies continue to collect huge amounts of intimate information on students, compile it into profiles of their aptitudes and attitudes — and then mine that data for commercial gain. It permits the companies to sell personal information about students to colleges and employers, and potentially to military recruiters as well. And it em...

The PI had an in-depth story today on the accidental disclosure of 7500+ student files to a guardian seeking to protect his sister's Sped rights.  In the story, it was stated that the district had filed to go to court and force the guardian to destroy the files.  This was puzzling to me as at least one reader said it HAD been done last week.  There is an update today from the district saying this (partial): We received confirmation yesterday that the individual provided the court with certification that the documents have been deleted and the individual possesses no copies, electronic or otherwise . The court certification confirmed the documents were not distributed, electronically or as hard copy, to any other individual or party except for a KING 5 News reporter who was permitted to view the files on the individual’s computer. KING 5 has confirmed they did not keep copies of the data. But the questions continue.

  Update : so there is definitely something amiss here. One, the FTC had made ConnectEdu promise NOT to sell off student data assets and yet that appears to be what happened.  Only the new company, Graduation Alliance, may have gotten away with it because they seem to have bought the entire ConnectEdu and so got bit just the data but the entire company.  Two, I asked SPS a number of questions but only got this reply: Thanks (sic) you for bringing this to our attention. We are working with the new company to resolve this quickly and ask them to comply by not selling the information. Well, I don't think the company is selling the information but they surely bought it up and did NOT return it to the district as was promised.    From a thread in June 2014 from KUOW: After learning that the company had filed for bankruptcy and was looking to sell, Rahm said the district tried to end its contract with ConnectEDU and have all student data on the site deleted...

It looks like the NWEA (the company that gives the MAP testing ) had a "denial of service" attack today.  This was at about 11 am and they sent a message out about the attack saying, "MAP is currently unavailable.  We apologize for the inconvenience."   Don't know any SPS schools were giving MAP today. I was doing some research on FERPA and found this clause: A school must inform eligible students of how it defines the terms "school official" and "legitimate educational interest" in its annual notification of FERPA rights.  Did anyone read their FERPA form carefully for this info?  Was it included? As to who on the Board might have requested the staff memo about charters schools , I got a little clarification but it's still a bit unclear.  Apparently someone senior thought the Board should know about the Oct 1 deadline for districts to file a Letter of Intent to become charter authorizers, told the Board and then Director McLar...

New parent or veteran of many grades, welcome back to Seattle Schools.  It can be dizzying and worrying but take it in stride.  You - and your child - will probably be just fine.  Transportation kinks will be worked out and so can schedules. That said, if your high schooler has schedule issues, hang in there if you are trying to get your child a rigorous schedule and not TA classes.  Also, if it's an issue of wanting to be with friends, do not try that argument with counselors.  You will get a blank stare (and rightly so).  A couple of pieces of advice:

I've been corraling stories about how to help parents make informed choices about schools and how to judgm how their child's school is doing. Need help figuring out schools?   A handy "cheat sheet" of what to ask from the Huffington Post. More questions you should ask your school/district especially around student data privacy .  This is a truly great and comprehensive list.  A great idea for parents that teachers/administrators use - "learning walks. "  From Edutopia: It is an invitation to parents to come to the school for a set period of time (an hour or two), to go on a guided tour of the school/classrooms during the school day. Not to look at the decor - but t o learn more about the learning happening or explore other topics revolving around education and the school .  Each tour/learning walk, would have a topic or theme to guide the discussion and help with selection of which classrooms to visit. The thought is more about giving paren...

 Stories from KUOW and Politico (highly recommended) and information I learned about what's in a TFA contract today about student data.  One is the KUOW piece about ConnectEDU and SPS .  It fleshed out what I had reported and had a couple of interesting comments.   Again: For the past three years, the school district has uploaded middle and high school students’ names, grades, addresses and demographic data to the website ConnectEDU. Students were able to add additional information, such as where they’d like to go to college, and how much they want to spend on tuition. The ConnectEDU privacy policy said that if the company was ever sold, users would be notified and allowed to remove all personally identifiable data from the site. After learning that the company had filed for bankruptcy and was looking to sell, Rahm said the district tried to end its contract with ConnectEDU and have all student data on the site deleted. The company’s lawyers ...

Update:   it seems that despite the fact the ConnectEdu has declared bankruptcy last week, they may trying to forge on.  I will ask about the contract that SPS has with this organization and the SPS student data they have. End of update. The district recognized some Nutrition Services staff as part of School Lunch Super Hero Day.  This week is School Nutrition Week so thank a kitchen staff member for watching out for students at your school. It is also PTA Teacher Appreciation week so please do thank your child's teacher for their hard work.  May 6th is National Teacher Day.   It is also Choose Privacy Week as observed by the American Library Association .   It's a time for discussion about "privacy rights in the digital age."  Something for everyone to think about considering the district has is using ConnectEdu and havd kids sign up WITHOUT previously explaining to parents what it is and what student information is being put into th...

Arne Duncan spoke at a public education summit yesterday put on by Common Sense Media. From Ed Week : The event came in the midst of a recent flurry of student data privacy-related activity. In addition to the non-binding federal guidelines , expected to be made public Tuesday afternoon, a leading technology trade group released recommendations on the issue ; major state legislation on the issue was proposed in California; and U.S. Senator Edward Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts who also spoke at Monday's school privacy summit, announced that he will soon introduce new federal legislation. All of this is good news. The big takeaway: One key principle around which there is an emerging cross-sector consensus is that educational data about students should be used solely for educational purposes—and not for targeted advertising. Industry representatives and some education officials in attendance at Monday's event supported the general notion, but said much co...

RBHS Coding Team In support of teacher Jon Greenberg This thread will cover the last School Board meeting last Wednesday, Feb. 5th.  All directors were in attendance but Director Carr.  The Rainier Beach High School T.E.A.L. team (Technology Education and Literacy in Schools) gave a presentation on coding work they have been doing.  There was a large crowd primarily around transportation, former Center School teacher, Jon Greenberg and the NW Center Kids program. 

Even though school is out there are several important meetings this week. Tuesday, June 25th Work Session on Growth Boundaries , 4:30-6:30 pm, no presentation yet available. This is the Work Session that Tracy Libros referenced in her remarks to the Board at the School Board meeting last Wednesday.  She mentioned that Lucy Morello of BEX would also be presenting in conjunction with capacity management. Community Meeting about the Wilson-Pacific projects , 7:30 pm at W-P Wednesday, June 26th Work Session on Strategic Partnerships and Communications , 4-5:30 pm  (I have no idea of how anyone thinks there could be any real discussion of any of these departments in this amount of time.  It's just ridiculous unless, of course, the idea is to NOT have discussion.) - Government Relations presentation - Office of Public Affairs and Communications presentation . - School and Community Partnerships Department presentation .  Oddly, this one includes the new - - - ...

One important note from the Board meeting - parent Mary Griffin spoke out about the issues around student data information, the inBloom student data "cloud" and FERPA and HIPPA (for students with disabilities).  She let the Board know that neither of those would protect student data if the district signed an agreement with a third-party allowing access to student information.  Director Sherry Carr, during her director comments, said she wanted clarity on this issue and asked for feedback from the district's legal counsel.  (I wrote to her and asked about when she wanted this and she said she wasn't sure she had a confirming vote from another director for this information.  She said she would check with legal counsel, Ron English.) I have been working with a couple of parents on this issue and I urge you to encourage the Board to seek this information.  Please write to them - schoolboard@seattleschools.org - and add your voice to this concern and ask for...