Jeff Jenkins, parent of a Chicago Public Schools student, tells state lawmakers about his son’s student information being breached. Jenkins urged lawmakers “to prioritize the safety of our children and their private data over personal profits of private vendors.” (BlueRoomStream.com)

Warning bells went off immediately when Jeff Jenkins got a postcard in the mail from a charter school that listed his son’s name, address and school.

“This particular network, we have never attended any briefing, any recruitment. We have never gone on their website or filled out anything,” the Chicago parent said. “So I wasn’t sure how they got that information.”

Seeing that the mailer was from the Rowe-Clark Math and Science Academy, named partially after Frank Clark, president of the Chicago Public Schools Board of Education, Jenkins said it screamed conflict of interest.

“Why are they coming after my public school kid?” Jenkins asked himself.

The Coonley Elementary School parent said when he called Rowe-Clark about the 2016 mailer he was told that his son must have attended one of the charter school’s recruitment fairs.

“I said, ‘I doubt it. He’s 11. I don’t think he’s looking to be recruited to your school,’” according to Jenkins.

After being shuffled between CPS departments with no answer, Jenkins connected with officials at Noble Network of Charter Schools, the overseer of Rowe-Clark, at which time he was told his family would be taken “off the list.”

After tempers rose on both side of the phone during the ensuring conversation about “the list,” the Noble representative said, “We paid good money for that information. We don’t have to tell you anything more,” according to Jenkins.

“I asked, ‘What else do you have? Do you have his grades? Do you have his behavior chart? Do you have his test information? Do you have his financial information?”

He said CPS’ inspector general launched an investigation, but two years later, he still doesn’t know how that information on his son was obtained. Jenkins noted that a CPS staffer who handed 30,000 files to Noble was fired and everyone with Noble involved in pilfering data was given a letter of reprimand.

“The ball is in your court now,” Jenkins said to state representatives at a Aug. 7 hearing about student data privacy, “to craft some legislation with teeth in it, something that prioritizes those of us who choose to attend our local public schools … prioritize the safety of our children and their private data over personal profit of these private vendors.”

With such incidents occurring on a regular basis, state lawmakers, such as Rep. Robert Martwick (D-Norridge), are looking at legislation that would better protect students’ data.

Ann Turner, a resident of Chicago’s Roscoe Village neighborhood, noted that her 11-year-old son was given a mandatory survey, along with 150 other kids, in November. Turner said the survey, given without parent consent, asked about gossip, aggression and bullying, and required students to provide their name and school identification number.

Ann Turner, a resident of Chicago’s Roscoe Village neighborhood, tells state lawmakers about her son being required to take a survey, without parent consent, that asked him about gossip, aggression and bullying, as well as requiring his name and student identification number. At right is Jeff Jenkins, another Chicago Public Schools parent, who said his son’s student information was breached. (BlueRoomStream.com)

“Our school now has a behavioral profile of each student that could follow them all through their CPS tenure,” Turner said. “… When schools are allowed to profile students without parental consent, it compromises the well-being of the child. The school administration becomes the data holder and the gatekeeper.”

She noted that her son was also part of a breach of more than 3,700 student names, addresses, phone numbers and ID numbers in June. She said despite requests from parents, CPS has not issued new ID numbers for those students whose information was breached.

“Students’ personal data is being treated with insufficient care,” Turner said.

Kathy Cunningham, the parent of three CPS students, said the contract she signed with the Summit Personalized Learning Program, a software firm focusing on individualized learning, allows the program to share student data with Facebook, Google and other software companies.

“Parents, literally, had no idea what we were signing up for,” Cunningham said of the hurriedly implemented program. “… We were given no other option, no other choice for our child to receive an appropriate education via a method that did not require us to consent to sharing this data.”

She said the lack of transparency with the program did not allow her to check up on grades and that she only found out her son was failing algebra when she showed up at parent-teacher conferences.

“There needs to be unequivocal protection of our students’ data from exploitation from third parties,” Cunningham said. “… Students’ educational records should simply never be licensed for use by third-party vendors, including for software development.”

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