Requestor
Hiruy Hadgu
Requested Information
Pursuant to the Maryland Public Information Act (PIA), I am requesting access to the following records related to the use of educational technology tools in classrooms within the Howard County Public School System (HCPSS):
List of educational technology tools currently being used in the classroom:
Specifically, I am requesting information on the use of the following tools, including but not limited to: Gaggle, Securly, Bark, GoGuardian, Lightspeed Systems, Linewize, NetRef.
Usage of tools:
How are each of the listed tools (or similar tools) used in classrooms, and for what purposes (e.g., monitoring, content filtering, safety, communication, etc.)?
Vendor information:
For each tool, please provide the name of the vendor, the data-sharing agreement between HCPSS and the vendor, and the terms under which the tool is provided to HCPSS.
Student privacy protection:
What measures does HCPSS take to protect student privacy when using these tools?
Specifically, how does HCPSS ensure that student data is protected when using these tools in the classroom?
Data retention and usage by the vendor:
What information is retained by the vendors of the tools mentioned above, and how long is the data retained?
How do the vendors use the data collected from HCPSS students? Please provide details regarding the vendor's data retention policies, as well as how the data is used (e.g., for analysis, improvement of services, marketing, etc.).
List of educational technology tools currently being used in the classroom:
Specifically, I am requesting information on the use of the following tools, including but not limited to: Gaggle, Securly, Bark, GoGuardian, Lightspeed Systems, Linewize, NetRef.
Usage of tools:
How are each of the listed tools (or similar tools) used in classrooms, and for what purposes (e.g., monitoring, content filtering, safety, communication, etc.)?
Vendor information:
For each tool, please provide the name of the vendor, the data-sharing agreement between HCPSS and the vendor, and the terms under which the tool is provided to HCPSS.
Student privacy protection:
What measures does HCPSS take to protect student privacy when using these tools?
Specifically, how does HCPSS ensure that student data is protected when using these tools in the classroom?
Data retention and usage by the vendor:
What information is retained by the vendors of the tools mentioned above, and how long is the data retained?
How do the vendors use the data collected from HCPSS students? Please provide details regarding the vendor's data retention policies, as well as how the data is used (e.g., for analysis, improvement of services, marketing, etc.).
Date Received
Status
Complete
Response Notes
Responsive to this request, the following publicly available reports contain information on use of Lightspeed Systems in HCPSS. This public Bids and Contracts report outlines its use (see PR-03): https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/hcpssmd/Board.nsf/files/BSDMMC5BE362/$file/08%2018%202020%20Bids%20%26%20Contracts%20BR.pdf. As noted in that report, HCPSS piggybacked
off the MEEC contract and RFP (via DataNetworks): https://meec-edu.org/meec-hardware-agreement-2017-2026/. No records of the other named tools were located. For reference, HCPSS has information on what we call essential or supplemental digital tools on this website: https://www.hcpss.org/digital-tools/. No clarification received to continue request.