How One School System Helped Stop Third Party Collection of Student Data

Are you listening, Tennessee teachers, principals, school boards, superintendents?

From the Great Neck Record:

The Great Neck School District is not about to release any information on any Great Neck students to InBloom nor to any other such third party provider. The Board of Education’s decision against releasing any such information came at the recommendation of Dr. Thomas Dolan, superintendent of the Great Neck Public Schools. And even though just last week Governor Andrew Cuomo and his panel on education announced that they would no longer support any student information to InBloom, Dr. Dolan told the Great Neck Record that until safeguards are in place for any such released data, the school district will not submit any personal student information at this time.

The school board’s initial vote came at a February school board public action meeting. It was a school board supported resolution to the New York State Education Department, a resolution that “demands that data on Great Neck students not be transmitted to any third party provider.”

Then, just a week ago, Cuomo announced that the state should no longer utilize the InBloom database, as had been recommended in January. InBloom, a non-profit group, was creating a statewide education database, reportedly to attempt to help to fix the state’s implementation of the highly controversial Common Core.

Dr. Dolan said that this turn of events was possibly the result of letters sent to the state, such as the one the Great Neck School District sent in opposition to InBloom and any such agency. “I think the letters got their attention,” he told the Record.

Dr. Dolan emphasized that at this time, the school district will not be releasing any such information to anyone.