Exposed!!

SWL probably gives away more information about your children than you know.

This article will be photo-intensive for evidentiary purposes if links fail or become broken. Yellow texts are links.

On December 15^th, 2022, the Southwest Licking School Board first read policy KKA-Recruiters in the Schools for amendment.

Here is a photo of the policy as introduced.

John Vincent mentioned some concerns about the policy, so they agreed to take it to their attorney for review before approving the first reading. Timestamp 29:30 below.

He argued that if we were really talking about equal access and we advise students and parents that they can opt out of having info disclosed it should be for all or none. This is all I will say on this because, as you see above, he approved the policy. This will be an important argument later, but it is important here because this delay pushed approval of this policy back to February 2023 instead of January 2023

Note the language above that is being removed pictured here.

Upon approval in February, commercial organizations can get nearly any information they want.

Note above, January 11^th, 2023, policy KKA is still on for a first reading and one board member voted Nay. Good Job John!!!!

Note below February 23^rd, 2023, Policy KKA was approved after a second reading with one board member voting NAY!!! Good job again!!

WHY DO I CARE CORY?????

EduPeak Solutions may have been in possession of student data before the policy approved them for it. When I say data……. That is lightly framing it. EduPeak Solutions states “EduPeak Solutions seeks to provide consultations to help districts plan, develop and carryout what is needed to move their district forward without paying a company for a product or product management.”

To be clear. I am NOT claiming that EduPeak Solutions stores your children’s data. I believe they are a consultation firm that may help districts store their own data. I do, however, believe they had access to data that was not a matter of public record and was specifically barred from distribution to a for profit consulting firm. It appears some of that data was used in a conference to advertise their services in central Ohio.

EduPeak Solutions Landing Page

EduPeak Solutions Presentations

EduPeak Solutions allegedly made presentations at the Ohio Education Technology Conference on February 14^th, 15^thor 16^th on their website cross referencing it with the OETC conference website. OETC 2023 Schedule

I’ll note here again that the policy to allow for-profit firms to have our children’s data wasn’t approved until February 23^rd, 2023. Had the policy been approved in January, it would have been in time for the OETC.

EduPeak Solutions Taking MTSS to the Next Level

The above link liberally uses district imagery and credits the district so there is no question where this information is from. I was entertaining a claim that it may have come from a permissive parent, but it appears that at least some of this information was pulled directly from the district information systems.  

You’ll note that this firm had student I.D. numbers and student names. Given that the id numbers are only blurred in the lower panel of the slide only, the information obtained was not redacted by the district, so this information likely LEFT the district information system at least partially intact.

Take a moment to appreciate that firms may be in receipt of ALL this information. I cannot confirm that this is from an EduPeak Solutions gui or suit. It looks like a screenshot of a student’s record. It appears that EduPeak Solutions has information on many children. Also note that the roster was imported on 4-11-2022. Was this information retrieved and provided to the firm a year before it was allowed to be in possession of it? If not, why was the information pulled and saved? When was it determined that the firm would get it? Was this information distributed by an agent of the district and did the parents of all children involved grant permission for this? Were parents informed that they may choose not to have their student’s information disclosed?

If they had student information, they had it before February 23^rd, 2023, when the board approved it to be given out.

How many organizations and for-profit firms and consulting organizations have our children’s information? How much access to the information do they have? How much information have they gotten? How long have they had it? Why are parents not informed that they don’t want this information to be disseminated? What are they doing with this information? How long will they have it? Do firms get to store this information? How long? What security measures are they taking to keep the data safe?

Can we now adopt a policy to not give this information away to firms that will use it to profit from our children? How is giving this information to a for profit company in the best interests of our students, families and community?

I have a LOT more questions, but I am going to save them for later.