http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/parents-concerned-about-handling-of-inappropriate-contact-with-students/2014/11/14/25ce465c-6852-11e4-b053-65cea7903f2e_story.html...The latest case involved a substitute teacher, Jose Pineda, 50, at Roberto Clemente Middle School who is accused of inappropriately touching a 12-year-old girl. Pineda was arrested Oct. 14, on a charge of child abuse, and the Germantown school’s parents learned about it on Nov. 7.
Montgomery County police said Friday that between five and 10 other students have come forward following recent school system notifications about Pineda’s arrest. Police said that the investigation is ongoing and that they could not provide details about any of the students’ accounts.
The case at Clemente Middle comes amid an uproar at John T. Baker Middle School in Damascus, Md., where parents were angered that almost a month passed before they were notified that a contractor, John E. Epps Jr., was arrested for allegedly touching a 12-year-old girl inappropriately in a school hallway...
Friday, November 14, 2014
WPost: Montgomery County police said Friday that between five and 10 other students have come forward following recent school system notifications...
More MoCo students allege inappropriate behavior by arrested substitute teacher
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/more-moco-students-report-inappropriate-behavior-by-arrested-substitute-teacher/2014/11/13/01c20616-6b92-11e4-9fb4-a622dae742a2_story.htmlSeveral elementary and middle school students in Montgomery County have reported inappropriate interactions with a substitute teacher who was already charged with the sexual abuse of one middle school student, the school district said in a letter to parents Thursday......The letter, which the school district said was sent to parents at 20 schools where Pineda had worked, said, “Over the past two days, some students at Ridgeview Middle School [in Gaithersburg] and Gaithersburg Elementary School have come forward and indicated they had interactions with Mr. Pineda that were inappropriate or made them feel uncomfortable.”...
Rachel Carson PTA Suggests New Lakelands Elementary and Study to Expand RCES
...Rachel Carson at about 1,000 kids is about 300 students over capacity and is listed as one of the most consistently over capacity schools in the district...
http://www.mymcmedia.org/rachel-carson-pta-suggests-new-lakelands-elementary-and-study-to-expand-rces/
Starr: It is not enough to “just find the best teachers and best principals and put them where they need to be,”
...School
administrators said that given union contracts and other factors,
simply looking at how teachers are placed is not sufficient.
It
is not enough to “just find the best teachers and best principals and
put them where they need to be,” said Joshua Starr, superintendent of
Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland. He said districts needed
to think about creating supportive school cultures.
“A teacher works in an ecosystem,” he said.
Are education groups really listening to their members?
“It is a recurring narrative about how the leadership in so many
education organizations is more responsive to those in power than to
those whom they represent.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/11/12/are-education-groups-really-listening-to-their-members/
Case in point in Montgomery County: MCCPTA Presidents sign Confidentiality Agreements in order to participate in back room MCPS budget meetings. MCCPTA Presidents never report to their dues paying members on what they do in those back room meetings.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/11/12/are-education-groups-really-listening-to-their-members/
Case in point in Montgomery County: MCCPTA Presidents sign Confidentiality Agreements in order to participate in back room MCPS budget meetings. MCCPTA Presidents never report to their dues paying members on what they do in those back room meetings.
Thursday, November 13, 2014
Breaking News from NBC4: More Students Report Inappropriate Contact With Montgomery Co. Substitute Teacher Jose Pineda
...Several more students at Ridgeview Middle School and Gaithersburg Elementary School have said they've had inappropriate contact with Pineda, according to a statement posted on the school system's site Thursday evening.According to MCPS, Pineda worked at Ridgeview for 29 days and at Gaithersburg Elementary for three days since the beginning of the 2013-2014 school year.These allegations are surfacing at the same time a contract worker for MCPS was arrested for sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl. That incident occurred at Baker Middle School on Oct. 6, and parents say they weren't notified it happened until Nov. 3.
Last night the Planning Commission voted to approve again the EZ Storage Application less than 250 feet from Maryvale Elementary School.
http://keepourschoolsandneighborhoodssafe.wordpress.com/
On Now: Kojo Nnamdi with A Contentious School Calendar In Montgomery County
Listen now:
Montgomery County’s Board of Education voted earlier this week to remove the names of religious holidays from the school calendar. The board notes that the days off will remain the same given how many staff and students are absent on those days. But the decision is a contentious one, both for those who’d like to see the days recognized as religious holidays, and for Muslim groups who lobbied to have their own holidays added to the calendar. We explore the issues.
Guests
- Philip Kauffman President, Montgomery County Board of Education
- Matt Bush Maryland Reporter, WAMU 88.5
- Patricia O'Neill Member, Montgomery County Public Schools Board of Education
- Saqib Ali Director of Government Relations, Council on American Islamic Relations, Maryland Chapter; Co-chair, Equality for Eid Coalition; Former Member, Maryland House of Delegates (D- Dist. 39, Gaithersburg)
Wednesday, November 12, 2014
MCPS is a Global Leader
Congratulations Dr. Starr and Phil and phriends.
You always wanted MCPS to have global recognition - and you've done it.
But not for academics.
We are seeing an overwhelming abundance of news stories about your decision to be more inclusive and proud of your district's diversity - or is it simply your decision to remove religion from MCPS Public Schools?
Tonight, Phil and Pat defended their decision on CNN.
Even the Times of Israel has picked up the story:
You always wanted MCPS to have global recognition - and you've done it.
But not for academics.
Tonight, Phil and Pat defended their decision on CNN.
Even the Times of Israel has picked up the story:
Great job folks! Thanks for the great press!"On Tuesday, the Montgomery County Board of Education voted to remove the religious designations after local Muslims had complained that the district observes Christmas, Easter, Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah, but does not offer vacation on any Muslim holidays.“School Dumps Christmas to Appease Muslims” was how Todd Starnes of Fox News Radio framed the headline. Describing the issue as “a new battleground in the war on Christmas” and “bad news for you Jews and gentiles out there,” Starnes implied that the holidays will be eliminated rather than just not identified on the school calendar. (“That means no more Christmas, no more Easter and no more Yom Kippur,” he claimed, later noting that the school board “opted to eliminate all religious holidays.”)"
Technology - Chromebooks in the Classroom - MCPS - Child Data Mining. Why care?
November 12, 2014
Dear Superintendent Starr,
Dear Superintendent Starr,
After my
messages with you and your assistants went unanswered over the past month, I am
writing this letter in hope that you contact me to set up a Technology Town
Hall meeting to answer many questions some of your parents are asking and your
staff has yet to answer.
As a
parent of a 3rd grader in Montgomery County, I too was excited to
see computers being rolled out to my child. It would allow
children to engage online while opening up the opportunity to advancing on an e-learning
platform.
With a
goal to understand and support the effort, I asked some questions to the County
official (Kara Trenkamp) in charge of the
roll-out. Specifically, what privacy protection is in place,
what pre-launch plan was implemented, and what does success to this initiative
look like?
It is at
that time I began to get the run around – and consequently, asked for an in
person meeting at our school (PBES) with your Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Sherwin Collette.
Approximately
50 parents showed up and we asked questions on the roll out. Unfortunately, most of the questions went
unanswered and promised material was never sent to the parents. Upon personal observation while visiting my
son’s classroom and/or reviewing my son’s Google Apps for Education account, I
witnessed:
1.
Ads from Google and Kahn Academy in my son’s Gmail account,
2.
Ads from Google in the Teacher’s account – being shown to
all students on the Promethean board in the classroom,
3.
Links to Google Shopping and Google Wallet freely accessible by my
son with his name prefilled in the app,
4.
Camera easily accessible by students, and
5.
Access to an adult Google Dictionary (that had ‘sexual intercourse’
as a definition for ‘Congress’) and YouTube with access to Pornography, to name just a few.
After
requesting, via FOIA,
the County and Google contracts and agreements, I have concluded that Google is
allowed, 100%, to collect any and all data (data mining) on my child (and
yours). You may ask ,”Why does this matter?”
Double
Dipping: Behavioral data mining collected by Google is very
valuable to their sales force. Google is
also benefiting from the sale of their educational technology software to our
kids, with sales in 2013 reaching nearly $8 Billion, according to the Software
and Information Industry Association. Lastly, this is a primary reason for
Google spending millions on lobbying against any bill that would
prohibit collecting child data.
For the
parents reading this letter, imagine this: Google’s data mined your
child’s online behavior for 12 years (k-12 grades) and now your child is
applying for colleges. Google sells all
of your child’s 12 years of behavior to the college, so they can determine if
your child is worth accepting.
Furthermore, once your child has graduated and is seeking a job, his/her
potential employers purchase Google’s data mined on your child to determine if
they should be hired. Lastly, they
finally have enough money to buy a house and car… and Google sells the bank and
auto insurance company the Google data mined on your child. The bank and auto insurance company will
utilize this past behavior data to determine the risk of lending, interest rate
to access, and auto premiums.
THIS IS WHY GOOGLE
IS COLLECTING YOUR CHILD’S DATA!
It is my
goal to protect my son’s electronic footprint and private data until he is old
enough to make wiser decisions, it is my goal to use his school time wisely,
and it is my desire to provide the teacher’s with the
proper training needed to determine measureable success goals. After-all,
according to Collette, “[data mining] is the bogeyman of
the moment,"
I am
hoping you may have the same goals and provide us an opportunity to get some
clear answers on this matter and get that bogeyman
out of our classroom.
Sincerely,
Ellen M.
Zavian, Parent
Additional
Supportive Information
Parents
in other states have already taken back their child’s privacy rights (i.e.: Colorado, California, Florida,
Kansas, Louisiana, RI, Maine, Virginia and more). Parents in Silver Spring,
Takoma Park, Potomac, and Howard County have already reached out and expressed
their concerns me.. Some parents have asked
MCPS to answer these three questions:
1.
What privacy protections has MCPS implemented for our students?
2.
What does success
look like with the roll out of the technology and new curriculum?
3.
How will MCPS prepare the schools, teachers, and students to
utilize the technology correctly?
Based on
the FOIA documents (contracts, printed policies, and agreements) and public
information, here are the answers:
Privacy 1. Few protections are in place for MCPS students
and their families.
a.
Google’s education platform privacy
policy for students is the same privacy policy used in its consumer services and it can be changed at anytime,
by Google, without notice.
b.
Google
has already been caught misleading parents about scanning
student emails for advertising purposes.
c.
Google
refuses to state whether it is scanning student emails to create user
profiles for commercial purposes.
d.
Google
refuses to sign a weak industry
backed student privacy pledge that would hold them accountable to protect
student privacy.
e.
Google
has been fined
tens of millions of dollars for intentionally violating
user privacy multiple times.
f.
Google
is mining all types of data on your child: words in emails, websites visited,
videos viewed, etc… and this behavior may then be sold to advertisers and/or
used for other commercial purposes.
g.
Google
is not purging any of this collected data and may sell it in the future (i.e. to
insurance companies, banks, college admission boards, potential
employers), to help third parties make decisions based on 13 +years of data collected (K – 12
grades) that may discriminate against students and families.
h.
Google
is placing products and services under
the ‘Shopping’ button that are geared towards your child’s behavior. Your child has full access to Google ‘Shopping’
and Google’s ‘Wallet’.
i.
Google’s
word dictionary is used by your child.
It is an adult dictionary (including sexual intercourse, etc…), not age
appropriate.
j.
Google
has connected YouTube to our students’ school accounts and based on my search
of sex, drugs, etc our children are being exposed to inappropriate content.
k.
Although
we were told only persons with MCPS email extensions can email your child (ie: high
school students can freely email grammar school students), Google and Kahn
Academy are both emailing your child regularly.
l.
The
Chromebook has a camera, which allows Google to use facial recognition software
on any photos stored on Chromebook/sent via email, which is valuable to
potential advertisers/customers.
m.
Google’s
advertisements appear on the teacher’s screen regularly, which is projected on the
front board of the classroom (Promethean board) for your child to see daily.
Success 2. No
quantitative data has been provided by MCPS on what success/goals looks like.
a.
MCPS’
Chief Technology Officer, Sherwin Collette and Dr. Kara Trenkamp, Director/Dpt.
Of Instructional Technology stated that no quantitative goals have been
put in place [quantitative examples: 5%
increase in reading, 3% in math scores over a 3 year period].
b.
No
goals to reach, then no vision, plan, strategic planning…. And, thus, MCPS
cannot determine failure.
c.
No
studies were conducted on the best age/grade to rollout the technology.
Prepare 3. Lack of preparation is evident.
a.
Typing
lessons were not taught to students prior to rollout of technology.
b.
Lack
of parent meetings by MCPS, prior to technology rollout.
c.
Lack
of strategic plan details shared with parents.
d.
No
budget numbers on training has been provided, even though requested.
THANKS
TO PARENTS
STATE AND
FEDERAL LAWMAKERS HAVE STARTED TO ACT TO PROTECT OUR CHILDREN
1.
State of Maryland’s efforts to pass a Child
Data Protection Act in 2014
a.
Maryland Delegate Kaiser, while serving as Chair of the Educational Subcommittee, sponsored
the 2014 bill, entitled “Education – Student Data Privacy
Act 2014”. (recording of hearing).
b.
Google
lobbied strongly against this Bill. Ultimately it did not have enough votes to
pass.
2. State of California – enacted the
Student Online Personal
Information Protection Act in 2014,
restricting the collection, storage and usage of child data by technology
software companies. According to the NY Times:
“….Technology companies are collecting a vast amount of data
about students, touching every corner of their educational lives — with few
controls on how those details are used.
Now California is poised to become the first state to
comprehensively restrict how such information is exploited by the growing
education technology industry.
Legislators in the state passed a law last month prohibiting
educational sites, apps and cloud services used by schools from selling or
disclosing personal information about students from kindergarten through high
school; from using the children’s data to market to them; and from compiling
dossiers on them. The law is a response to growing parental concern that
sensitive information about children — like data about learning disabilities,
disciplinary problems or family trauma — might be disseminated and disclosed,
potentially hampering college or career prospects. Although other states have
enacted limited restrictions on such data, California’s law is the most
wide-ranging.”
New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/15/technology/with-tech-taking-over-in-schools-worries-rise.html?_r=0
USA Today: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/07/30/new-york-parents-bill-of-rights/13386741/
3.
State
of Colorado – efforts to pass a Child Data Protection Policy in 2014
a. January, 2014, Colorado’s
Department of Education passed the Information
Security and Privacy Data Policy
– to further protect students from data mining by technology software
companies.
b.
In
June, 2014, Colorado Governor signed the House Bill 14-1294, to further protect the children
of Colorado in K-12 grades:
“….The privacy of our
children is critically important, especially in
regard to their K-12
educational experience and the student data collected
during this time.
Schools are a safe environment, and an important component of maintaining
security is ensuring student privacy and
protecting student
data….”
4. Existing federal and state privacy
laws such as FERPA
and COPPA
have not kept up with technology and do not adequately protect K-12 students. Experts from around the country have stated
our students need stronger privacy protections: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/marketplacek12/2014/04/google_abandons_scanning_of_student_email_accounts.html
Tuesday, November 11, 2014
NBC4: Baker Middle School Principal "Sorry" for Not Notifying Parents of Sex Assault
A Montgomery County principal apologized for not letting parents know about a sex assault involving a school contract worker and a 12-year-old student for weeks after the incident.
http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Baker-Middle-School-Principal-Sorry-for-Not-Notifying-Parents-of-Sex-Assault-282360191.html
MCPS Removes All References to Religion on School Calendar
http://www.mymcmedia.org/mcps-removes-all-references-to-religion-on-school-calendar/
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