In today’s highly technological world, texting has replaced phone calls, emails are standard versus traditional mail delivery, and apps, such as Batavia City School District’s ParentSquare, are common tools used by parents and teachers.
However, parent Bob Trombley says this app has been unproductive, ineffective, and downright illegal so far. He spoke to the school district's board on behalf of himself and fellow frustrated parents.
“Although the Parent Square app and many others like it are a seemingly convenient way to communicate for some parents, students, and staff, for many others, it is incredibly difficult to use or to even log into, or receive any relevant information about a parent or a guardian's child. It may be no surprise to you that many class action lawsuits for various reasons have started across the country involving apps that schools decide to use as innovation platforms between parents and teachers and faculty,” Trombley said during the board’s meeting Monday. “Just a simple Google cursory search, you find many, many stories of (eavesdropping on conversations). Although you can say Parent Square does not do that, or we have been assured that they don't do that, you cannot, with a clear conscience, make that statement of fact that they do not do that; you would be speaking to something that you're not absolutely sure of to say that those things weren't happening.
"An even bigger problem here is that by insisting that parents use this app … you're forcing parent citizens to use only your method of communication," Trombley said. "We don't know if it censors. We don't know if we have a guarantee that any grievances that we have will actually be accepted or make their way across the platform. We don't know if things are filtered out, as parents are saying. We just don't know; that's a massive problem.”
Beyond it being a problem, it’s a violation of the First Amendment, the Americans with Disabilities Act and the 14th Amendment, he said. He wanted to know about those parents who don’t have a device to use an app, and those with a learning disability that might have difficulty using the app. Or those who cannot afford internet access or are “seriously challenged by technology or the ability to understand.”
“You're operating under the authority of the state. You are abridging my privilege as a parent of freedom of speech to communicate the way I want, with staff, with faculty, with teachers,” he said. “You don't have that power. If you want to force faculty to communicate a certain way, you can do that, you pay them, you can't apply your policies to the public as a whole.
“I, personally, have not been able to communicate with my students’ teacher via this app since its existence in the district; my children's mother has had the same issues. I have spoken with many parents. They all have the same problem. We get logged out. We can't get logged back in. Then we don't get all the information. We get a flood of information. No one knows what's going on,” he said. “And in my experience, when I have called the school directly and asked to speak with a teacher, I've been told, ‘No, you're not allowed to speak with the teacher; we do everything through the app.’ When I have requested paper forms, no, sorry, it has to go through the app. Everything is on the app. This is unacceptable.”
He added that some board members, “in an effort to show sympathy or empathy,” have shared with him that they have struggled with the app as well. He asked that something be done “right away” to fix this because every parent should have an opportunity to decide how to communicate with district faculty.
Superintendent Jason Smith wanted to clarify that the app was never meant to substitute other forms of communication.
“Any time a parent calls, you will have the opportunity to speak with the teacher,” Smith said, as Trombley interjected that it hasn’t been his experience. “If that's the case, I'll look into that. But under no circumstances were parents meant to ever, you know, replace that phone call. So that's not the expectation. That's not our expectation. So just, for the record, if a parent calls and asks to speak with a teacher, you're always given an opportunity.”
The Batavian has asked for additional comments from Smith regarding the district’s policy about Parent Square and teachers' understanding of communication with parents.
ParentSquare, per its website, is a simple platform for communications between home and school. ParentSquare is designed for whole-school adoption and collaborative use by district administrators, principals, school administrators, teachers, staff, parent leaders and parents at preK-12 districts and schools. Users can share messages about school logistics and student classroom learning along with pictures and files, volunteer requests and class supply lists, calendars and directory information.
ParentSquare collects two types of information: personal information your school knowingly chooses to disclose that is collected on an individual basis, and website-use information collected on an aggregate basis as you and others browse its website. The following information is also provided on the app's website:
Basic Information Your School Provides ParentSquare
- Admin Role: We use name, ID, title, phone number, email address, address, group memberships, school memberships and district memberships from school-provided data.
- Staff Role: We use name, ID, title, phone number, email address, address, group memberships, school memberships and district memberships from school-provided data.
- Teacher Role: We use name, ID, title, phone number, email address, address, classes, section, group memberships, school memberships and district memberships from school-provided data.
- Student Role: We use name, ID, address, gender, grade level, enrolled courses, other enrolled groups, extracurricular activities and family relationships from school-provided data. For schools using StudentSquare, this may include email addresses and phone numbers.
- Parent/Guardian/Contact Role: We use name, relationship to the student, phone number, email address, address, communication language, group memberships, school memberships and district memberships from school-provided data. from school-provided data.
- Emergency-Only Contact Role (if applicable): We use name, phone number, email address and any emergency contact information from school-provided data.
- Guest/External Member Role: If provided, we use name, phone number, email address, address, group memberships, school memberships and district memberships from school-provided data.
Additional Contact Information Your School May Provide About Students
The School may also choose to provide additional student information such as their English language learning status, enrollment in free and reduced lunch programs, attendance records, lunch balances, bus routes, grades and assignments if the School is using the corresponding ParentSquare feature.
Sharing and Disclosure of Information
ParentSquare uses the data received from the School for the sole purpose of delivering products and services to the School. We do not rent, trade, or sell or otherwise distribute your information to any third parties and will only disclose information when allowed by FERPA and required a) by applicable laws or government orders or b) to maintain and operate our service or c) when authorized by the School.
ParentSquare may acquire information (including Personally Identifiable Information or “PII”) from the school SIS/SMS or other school systems, such as payroll systems, nutrition systems, fee systems, etc, through a School-requested integration.
ParentSquare provides links to external websites for purposes which are intended solely to support the school’s day-to-day operations. The School or its users may post links within ParentSquare or StudentSquare to external websites for which we have no control.
