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;

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.

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.

 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 ...