We understand that educators, administrators, parents, and caregivers have questions regarding the privacy policies of the education technology in use in their district.
We take our responsibility to protect student data privacy and act responsibly as data processors extremely seriously. Our entire business is built on it, our customers depend on it, and it is a top priority across our organization.
First and foremost, PowerSchool Holding, Inc., the parent company which owns Schoology Learning, does not rent, sell, nor otherwise provide access to student data to third parties for marketing or advertising purposes.
In this blog QA, we want to spotlight our commitment to data privacy within the PowerSchool Schoology Learning product. This includes outlining what data Schoology Learning does and does not process or utilize, what the data is used for, and why we never use student data for any marketing or advertising purposes.
Q: How do educators, students, and care-givers access Schoology Learning?
Schoology Learning is a learning management system (LMS) for schools that enables its users to create, manage, and share assignments and resources. As the leading K-12 LMS, tens of millions of students, teachers, and caregivers rely on Schoology Learning every day to support personalized instruction for in-person, hybrid, and distance learning.
PowerSchool contracts directly with school districts to provide tools, like Schoology Learning, via the password-protected Schoology Learning web-based and mobile (Android and iOS) applications.
Q: What data does Schoology Learning process on behalf of educators and school districts?
All software-as-a-service (SaaS) products interact with various forms of data to operate. This data can be defined in two categories: user data and transactional data.
While using Schoology Learning, educators, students, and their caregivers securely upload user data related to student learning – educational records. This includes course materials, homework, communications between educators, students, and their caregivers, and grading and measuring student learning outcomes.
Each school or school district determines how this data is used. All user data processed by PowerSchool is done at the direction of the school for valid and consented to educational purposes.
We do not track or share this student data with third parties for any use unrelated to the educational purposes as directed by our customers.
Q: What data does Schoology Learning utilize and why?
Transactional data is generated when interacting with any SaaS product, including Schoology Learning. Transactional data includes information such as the browser type and configuration, the date and time of use or service, and the IP address.
We do not use any data, including transactional data, for any purpose other than providing customer support and improving the customer experience.
Schoology Learning utilizes this transactional data to serve our customers and improve functionality. For example, when an educator reports an issue with a feature not loading properly, our customer support team can replicate the issue. Information like the browser type and configuration helps us troubleshoot and fix issues.
Q: How does Schoology Learning use cookies?
In some cases, we allow third-party cookies within Schoology Learning when required by third-party applications that our customers install. This enables districts and educators to connect other learning apps within the Schoology Learning environment. These third-party vendors may utilize cookies to enable their learning apps to function.
Schoology Learning does not use or share cookie data with anyone for any purpose and we never track user data outside of the Schoology Learning platform. As our customers know, no advertisements are present in the Schoology Learning platform.
Q: What is PowerSchool’s data privacy commitment?
PowerSchool’s mission is to power the education ecosystem with integrated technology that helps educators and students realize their full potential, in their way.
PowerSchool strictly and proactively follows legal, regulatory, and voluntary requirements for protecting student privacy including the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and state regulations.
As a signatory of the Student Privacy Pledge 2020 and holder of certifications from industry leaders such as TrustArc and PRIVO, we demonstrate this commitment everyday by protecting student data privacy across our portfolio of products, including Schoology Learning.
For more information on our comprehensive approach to data privacy, please visit this blog post.