Student Privacy and Financial Literacy Bills Advance in House and Senate

WSPTA members testified in support of legislation advancing the cause of student privacy and financial literacy.  House Bill 1495 and Senate Bill 5419 will protect you and your children by restricting third party use of student information. Senate Bill 5202 and House Bill 1121 expands access to financial literacy tools in K-12 while Senate Bill 5349 addresses financial literacy at the collegiate level.  

If you would like to help us advance this legislation or have a personal story to share, reply to this e-mail or sign up on Engage here.  

PTA and student privacy

A recent on-line article by KUOW interviewed me on the topic of student privacy in light of the Seattle Times being granted access to student records in partnership with the State.  I wanted to elaborate on the Washington State PTA’s views, and our National PTA’s views, on student privacy.

Parents assume that confidential information about their children is going to be kept confidential.  One of the challenges that parents have in our state, however, is that Washington defines public disclosure very broadly.  This can be a good thing and it can also be a bad thing depending on what information is released and how it is used.  In this specific instance, the State Department of Education willingly shared information with the Seattle Times as part of their research studies program called “Education Lab.” 

It has been determined that the information was released without a public disclosure request and the request was granted for the purpose of research.  This recent action highlights the challenges that our legislators face in upholding the ability of public or private entities access to information and the need to protect our children from unwanted exposure.  Our National organization has printed a white sheet on student privacy and I have included the link below.  Our legislative team will be discussing this issue and pursuing a course of action over the next few weeks leading up to the legislative session. 

Heather Gillette

President, Washington State PTA

What Every Parent Should Be Asking about Education Data and Privacy

What Every Parent Should Be Asking about Data Privacy

Asking the questions on the previous page, families are more ready than ever to use education data to help their kids. However, along with the great benefits of education data come school, district, and state responsibilities to keep your child’s data private. Empowered parents can ensure that their child’s data are being protected by demanding answers to the following questions:

1. How is my child’s privacy being protected?

What Every Parent Should Be Asking about Education Data

Schools and districts collect a lot of information about students. Empowered parents should demand to get value out of these data. Here are questions you can ask of your school officials to ensure that your child is on track to graduate college and career ready:

1. I already have my child’s grades and test scores, so what more do I need?

HB 2538, WaKids; testimony in support

To: Senate Early Learning and K-12 Education Committee

Re: WaKids, HB 2538

Dear Chairwoman McAuliffe and committee members,

I wanted to follow up on my testimony in support of HB 2538, which moves up implementation of WaKids’ inventory of skills. Washington State PTA continues to support WaKids and looks forward to statewide implementation.

With WaKids the focus is on understanding each student’s particular needs and using that information to build strong relationships with the family so that, together, family and educator can better support the child.