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Invasive Chromebook policy infringes on student privacy

The growth of educational technology has been an integral aspect of modernizing classroom instruction, and the Palo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD) has set its sights on utilizing these technologies to their fullest extents.

With the newly initiated 1:1 Future Ready program, PAUSD has provided seventh graders at Jordan Middle School along with sophomores and juniors at Palo Alto High School and Gunn High School with the opportunity to borrow a take-home Chromebook for the year.

While the program has been well-intentioned in providing students access to technology regardless of socioeconomic background, there have been a plethora of student privacy concerns arising from the Chromebook use policies.

Initially devoid of privacy regulations with the exception of those required by law, the 1:1 program is devolving into one with disturbingly paternalistic restrictions — reminiscent of government surveillance in George Orwell’s dystopian novel, “1984” —  that strip students of the academic independence that PAUSD has aimed to promote in a variety of ways. The program is set to expand its reach to all grade levels next school year, but it is important that the District takes into consideration several major concerns with the Chromebook program’s privacy guidelines before it proceeds any further.

At the start of January, the District made an effort to enforce enhanced District monitoring of Chromebook activity due to concerns parents voiced at multiple “Parent Night” information sessions held at the three PAUSD schools. While this system failed for logistical reasons — web-filtering software Securly, which the District would like to see installed on all Chromebooks, prohibits students from using non-school email accounts, and PAUSD underestimated the number of students who relied on personal emails for school work — the District is still making a concerted effort to reinvigorate these harsher restrictions.

“The message we heard loud and clear from all three Parent Nights is that parents were asking for a tool to understand and know what their kids are doing at home,” said Derek Moore, Chief Technology Officer of PAUSD. “It was very concerning to the parents that we were sending devices home and not giving them tools to understand what’s actually happening on the device.”

One particularly troubling facet of the newly-proposed restrictions, however, is the use of the “Parent Report,” a service provided by Securly.

This opt-in feature allows parents to receive weekly reports of their child’s Chromebook use, detailing the amount of time spent on various websites and programs by the student. Even more concerning is parents have the unilateral right, whether they know it or not, to request as much information as they would like from the District regarding their child’s Chromebook use, regardless of whether their child wants that information disclosed.

“A parent can request further information, or District records, from us as a school and a District,” Moore said. “They can request that, and we have no ability to say no. I mean, it’s your child, right?”

This means that students’ browsing history can be viewed without their consultation, blurring the lines between student privacy at school and at home. Although providing parents the ability to view students’ online activity on a school-sanctioned device may not seem unreasonable, The Campanile believes such access is a matter best left for parents to discuss with their children. By granting parents unrestricted access to browsing histories through the Parent Report, student voice in the matter is eliminated, with the service effectively acting as the sole liaison between parents and their child’s activity.

The way PAUSD has gone about implementing and revising the Chromebook program reinforces this seemingly perpetual issue of student voice, or more precisely, the lack thereof. Multiple Parent Nights have been held to gauge parental response and advice, but according to Moore, PAUSD has yet to receive any student feedback on the program. Essentially, there has not been a single formal opportunity for students to express any of their concerns about parent or district monitoring of their Chromebook activity.

“I sent out a Google [survey to] ask [parents] what their concerns are,” said Adam Paulson, who oversees Paly’s technology programs as Assistant Principal of Teaching and Learning. “So I got a lot of concerns from parents who didn’t even come to the [Parent Night] meetings. There were probably around 100 responses total.”

One may argue students who feel strongly about the matter can contact those in charge to provide feedback, but it is clear students are at a structural disadvantage in terms of voicing their opinion. The District, time and time again, whether it be with Gunn’s zero period removal or the issue of Chromebook privacy guidelines, has failed to uphold its commitment to empowering students and has instead clearly demonstrated that it values parent opinions over student perspectives.

The final concern with the program is with the “No Expectation of Privacy” clause in the technology use policies. While it is true administrators don’t keep their eyes on Chromebook activity at all times, there seems to be a lack of a clear threshold for triggering an investigation of a student’s files and browsing history.

Presumably, it would only seem necessary and reasonable for administrators to dig into a student’s Chromebook information under the circumstances of disciplinary or illegal activity, but no such policy has been publicly released.

Consequently, students and parents are not informed of the circumstances in which they may not have their right to privacy protected; in fact, not even administrators such as Moore and Paulson, who are directly involved in the Chromebook program, were able to provide specific examples of actions that might prompt an investigation.

Before PAUSD decides to expand the 1:1 program, it is vital for them to reevaluate privacy regulations and take into consideration student feedback when shaping the program’s guidelines. Technology use may indeed be the future of education, but at what point will policies unreasonably infringe on a student’s right to privacy? It’s our job as a community — administration, parents and students alike — to figure this out together.

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    Stephen WarrenDec 10, 2018 at 4:30 pm

    Unironically, This site is the only quality documentation stating how school boards across America can go through a students browsing history, messaging and more at home or at school, absolutely destroying the idea that people of the united states are given privacy as a right, because schools can just view your searches or websites visited, this means at home and at school, because use of a school computer is mandatory and threatens you paying 600$, forcing many students parents into paying a 50$ yearly fee just incase that happens.

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    Scott CarlsonFeb 10, 2017 at 6:33 pm

    “The Campanile believes such access is a matter best left for parents to discuss with their children”–very good. There’s nothing about the Securly program that precludes this, or the trust that Mr. Vincenti values. Each household can decide for itself how much or little to use the program. No one is going to force parents to look at the information; it’s up to them and, if they wish, their children. As for privacy, students might take a cue from Mr. Zuckerberg, who was recently photographed with a post-it over the camera of his laptop: Let’s face(book) it, there’s no privacy on the internet. Not on your “personal” laptops, let alone school-issued ones.

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      Marc VincentiFeb 10, 2017 at 11:53 pm

      Friday evening

      Dear Scott (Mr. Carlson),

      I always enjoy it (sincerely, I do!) when people on these forums make such civil replies as yours, and give me some useful food for thought, into the bargain. As with most things in life, I usually find there are a couple more layers that I can usefully contemplate; I’ll be thinking carefully about what you wrote. I’m glad the Campanile is now getting a little more discussion-traffic on its website (!) and hope some high-schoolers will weigh in here, too. Thanks for being so gracious about my valuing of trust; and I hope you and everyone will free to write to me anytime at savethe2008@gmail.

      Best, Marc Vincenti

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    Marc VincentiFeb 10, 2017 at 2:33 pm

    This editorial makes me want to stand up and cheer! (In fact, I just knocked over my chair!)

    So thoughtful, so well-informed, so mature, so well-written. And what a relief to see our young Vikings and Titans willing to fight back, just like (to use this editorial’s example) defiant Julia and Winston in rebellion against Big Brother.

    (And by the way, isn’t “Securly” just the kind of dishonest footsie with the English language that Orwell warned us to be suspicious of? What’s next at Gunn and Paly–reams of wonderful “Homwork”?)

    Fact is, this is part of a larger picture, and I wouldn’t be surprised if students feel it: the whole idea of “trust” between parents and teenagers long ago crashed and burned with the installation of GPS on phones, techno-monitoring added to the family car, bar-code scanning for school attendance, Schoology tracking for homework, continuous online grade reporting, and Districts contracting with data-mining services to track kids’ use of public social media.

    Who the heck has time to build something as confidence-enhancing and feel-good as “trust” anymore?! Does anybody even remember anymore how to do that?! Or even want to?!

    So I’m glad the kids are fighting back and would like to be (OMG!) “trusted” for once! And that they have all this eloquence and reasoning and knowledge to bring to the fight–so much the better!

    Sincerely,
    Marc Vincenti
    Gunn English Dept. (1995-2010)
    Chairman, Save the 2,008 — creating hope for Palo Alto’s high-schoolers

    Reply