After finding out that the Raymond school district was tracking children with digital badges, it appears as if they are going to go forward with this PBIS program. This time it looks like they will at least follow the law. They’ve been using the digital badges for a while now, but the administrators did not follow state regulations on digital tracking devices. You can read more about that here.
As I reported, this is government surveillance that includes the sharing of personal information with a 3rd party vendor.
There are no real privacy protections in place to secure the data because in December 2011, the U.S. Department of Education changed the regulations governing the release of student data to the private sector. President Obama did this without Congressional authorization.
Ed Tech vendors have profited since then by keeping parents in the dark when they mine their child’s data. Administrators have been too lazy or unwilling to protect the privacy of your children too. School administrators could be notifying parents about the potential to data-mine your child’s personal information without a law in place. Prior to 2011, school officials would have had to notify and receive consent by parents and guardians in order to use these kinds of software programs in the school.
All of this data mining by vendors and other outside sources, violate the The New Hampshire Constitution:
An individual’s right to live free from governmental intrusion in private or personal information is natural, essential, and inherent. It may take someone willing to sue the schools to settle this in court.
The privacy policies tech vendors use, do not protect your child’s data. Instead they exploit the loophole in the federal student privacy law (FERPA). If you read the privacy policies that are supposed to protect your child’s data, because they follow the FERPA law, you assume that the tech vendor protects the student’s privacy. But there are now exceptions to which schools and vendors can share your child’s personal data without your knowledge or consent. The privacy policies are not private.
II. No school shall require a student to use an identification device that uses radio frequency identification, or similar technology, to identify the student, transmit information regarding the student, or monitor or track the student without approval of the school board, after a public hearing, and without the written consent of a parent of legal guardian of an affected student which may be withheld without consequence.
Why wouldn’t parents want this type of digital tracking devices on their children? There are many reasons including the data mining of information on their children by the tech vendor. In addition to their right to live free from government intrusion, this type of device grooms children into thinking that they should be monitored at all times.
Since this is a positive rewards system, I asked some teachers and school counselors what they thought of this approach to addressing behavior. Here are some of the problems they saw with it:
1) This can be demoralizing to many children, especially children with special needs
2) Contrary to what counselors believes helps children
3) This rewards behavior that they should already be doing
4) The screen shown in class includes their face and behavior points
5) Whoever has the right number of points gets the toy.
6) Violates the counselor ethics when children are demoralized
7) Data collected in the teacher’s cell phones
What should be provided to all school board members and parents?
The whole contract, and look at the encryption, and security protections to see if they match the individual district security requirements.
What about security breaches? Have there been any? Would parents be immediately notified?
Has data from the PBIS system been shared with Keene State BHII? If so, were parents notified and did they consent?
Are parents given the right to opt out of this project? Why or why not? Where are schools using the digital badges with PBIS? Which schools? Did they let parents know their kids can opt out? Were kids forced to wear the digital badges?
There will be a school board hearing on April 5th. This is when parents can object to this tracking device. Parents also have the ability to not consent.
