Social and Emotional Learning has come under fire since it first began showing up in schools. SEL was going to be used as part of a behavior framework known as the Multi Tiered System of Support. The MTSS-B is a 3-tiered framework that guides schools on how to handle behavior or mental health problems with students.
At the bottom of the MTSS-B you have SEL. All children will be subjected to SEL in school. While SEL might sound good, parents are opting out. Many will tell you that it takes time away from learning, and brings a group therapy situation into the classroom that they don’t want for their children. Others have said they actually like some of the programs that help their child better regulate themselves. With New Hampshire’s opt out law, parents can remove their children from an SEL class.
But there is another problem with SEL, it can be embedded in other classes like math. Some of the Ed Tech vendors incorporated SEL into their math program. The Math Ed Tech vendors will not only collect math grades on your children, they will collect mental health, and behavior data on them too. That will make it hard for you to control the Ed Tech vendor from gathering this sensitive information on your children. No from school tells you this, and no one will certainly tell you where all of your child’s information will end up. Data is gold $$$$$$ now.
SEL is even part of Panorama Education, the Ed Tech Vendor owned by Merrick Garland’s Son In Law. Merrick Garland was President Biden’s U.S. Attorney General who came after moms and dads who showed up to school board meetings. You have to wonder what Panorama will do with all of the data collected on students.
Take a look at this:https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4982958/attorney-general-i-exquisitely-aware-ethics-requirements
What are they doing with all of that personal information on your children?
But what about all of the SEL data that is now plugged into the software of the SEL vendor. Where does that go? This data can be highly sensitive if it were to be shared.
SEL data can be behavior or mental health information on a child. So these are data that parents would rightfully want to secure, and keep private.
FERPA, the student privacy law, was weakened several years ago. This change in law now allows Ed Tech for-profit vendors to collect sensitive personal information on students without a parent’s knowledge or consent. It’s one thing when they are collecting math scores, it’s quite another when they are collecting your child’s behavior or mental health records.
Many have heard about the PowerSchool breach through their school administration. But what parents were not informed of was the lawsuit parents filed against Powerschool. Parents charged Powerschool with:
AND :
PowerSchool says they are acting legally when they share their data with other organizations and vendors. So what are they doing with your child’s personal information, and what are all of the other Ed Tech vendors doing with your child’s personal information too?
How would you know that your child’s SEL data has been collected and shared? Most parents have no idea that their child is being assessed and all of those data are being uploaded into the software where Ed Tech Vendors have access to it.
Here’s the PowerSchool awsuit. https://edtech.law/…/2024/05/complaint-powerschool.pdf
This is also a way for the Ed Tech vendors to put together a psychological profile on your child, and you’d never know it. A physician from New Hampshire wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal about this years ago.
Have You Seen Junior’s Psych Profile?
School Counselors in New Hampshire have also shared personal mental heath data on students in some New Hampshire schools. This was done without parental knowledge or consent. The personally identifiable mental health information was shared with Keene State BHII in order to meet the federal requirements on a federal grant that made the MTSS-B available to schools across the state. This may have been an invasion of privacy that violates our New Hampshire Constitutional right to privacy. It also violated the School Counselor’s Code of Ethics.
Parents need to know that when their child walks into a school, and is handed a Chromebook, that is a vehicle to collect massive amounts of data on their children. After that, they will never know where that information is sent. If their child is participating in any SEL classes, or core classes with SEL embedded, they may want to try to opt out of that. You can do that by following this New Hampshire Opt Out Law.
If your child visits the school counselor, that information may also be shared without a parent’s knowledge or consent. If you want this information private, you are better to seek these services from a private provider where they follow a Code of Ethics, and understand our right to privacy. Student data, especially mental health or SEL data is a commodity now. Your child has a price tag on their head.
Parents have not only refused SEL, and school counseling for their children, some have even removed their children from the public schools over this invasion of privacy.
Now that you know this personal and sensitive data are considered a commodity, you can figure out ways to protect your child’s privacy. If you want to continue down this path, that is your choice but there are options for parents who do not.
