4 EDCAL June 11, 2018
Transitions
Cuyama Joint Unified School District
has appointed Stephen Bluestein as their
new district superintendent/principal. He
will begin his duties July 1. He is currently
the principal of Mesa Union School in
Somis. Prior to that, he served as a princi-
pal for over nine years in the Los Angeles
Unified School District.
n n n
The Kentfield School District has an-
nounced that Grant Althouse will be the
next principal of Kent Middle School. Alt-
house comes to the district from Palo Alto
where he has been principal of Fairmeadow
Elementary School.
n n n
Denair Unified School District has
hired Terry Metzger as its new superinten-
dent. Metzger succeeds Aaron Rosander
who is retiring after four and a half years in
the district. Metzger has been the assistant
superintendent for curriculum and instruc-
tion in the Rincon Valley Union School
District in Santa Rosa since 2012.
n n n
Jim Brown has announced his retire-
ment after serving 19 years as superinten-
dent of College School District in Santa
Ynez. Brown has given nearly four decades
service to California schools. While in the
High Desert, he served as President of
the Mountain-Desert Managers ACSA
Charter. Brown was named ACSA’s Super-
intendent/Principal of the year in 2011.
He looks forward to time with family and
grandkids – and maybe a little more time
on his Harley. The district has named Prin-
cipal Maurene Donner as his successor
beginning July 1.
n n n
Region 13 announced their 2018 awards
for regional leaders.
Superintendent – Penelope DeLeon,
Oxnard Union HSD
Valuing Diversity – Rich Underhill,
Simi Valley USD
Middle Grades Principal – John Calan-
dro, San Luis Coastal USD
Elementary Principal – Erin Roderick,
Las Virgenes USD
Secondary Co-administrator – Michelle
Boyd, Orcutt Union SD
Elementary Co-administrator – Angela
Soares, Guadalupe Union SD
Classified Leader – Sherry Manley
Dreher, Ventura USD
Confidential Employee – Kristie Wal-
lace, Ventura USD
Adult Education Administrator – Jean
Ellis, Ventura USD
Special Education Administrator – Su-
san Roberts, Oak Park USD
Central Office Administrator – Rene
Rickard, Ventura USD
Continuation/Educational Options
Administrator – Stewart McGugan, Oak
Park USD
Pupil Personnel (Student Services)
Administrator – Derek Ihori, Las Virgenes
USD
Career Technical Education Adminis-
trator – Tiffany Morse, Ventura COE
Curriculum and Instruction Adminis-
trator – Ryan Gleason, Las Virgenes USD
n n n
Aviva Ebner, has been promoted from
her role as principal of Uplift California
South Charter and Uplift California Santa
Barbara, to a new role in A3 Schools, effec-
tive July 1, as Head of Schools (Regional
Director), overseeing all Uplift California
charter schools and several programs in
Oregon, including Oregon Prep and Uplift
Oregon.
n n n
Send ACSA-member news for Transitions
to EdCal Editor Cary Rodda at crodda@acsa.
org.
New analysis of edtech industry finds serious privacy risks for kids
The nonprofit group Common Sense
has released a white paper finding that only
10 percent of the more than 100 education
technology applications and services that
were evaluated in the organization’s analysis
met minimum criteria for transparency and
quality in their policies.
The three-year examination of the
most-used applications and services in
education technology finds a widespread
lack of transparency, as well as inconsistent
privacy and security practices. This is a
major concern given that tens of millions
of children use these learning technologies
on a daily basis. The 2018 State of EdTech
Privacy Report includes an analysis of how
student information is collected, used and
disclosed, including third-party marketing,
advertising, tracking and profiling.
“Educational technology platforms serve
the most vulnerable population when it
comes to protecting privacy – our kids,”
said James Steyer, founder and CEO of
Common Sense. “It’s vital that educators,
parents, and policymakers engage in the
same conversations with the edtech indus-
try that we’re having now with Facebook,
Instagram, YouTube and other social media
platforms about building solutions that
strengthen our children’s security and priva-
cy protections.”
Nearly all of the educational technolo-
gy applications and services evaluated by
Common Sense either do not clearly define
safeguards taken to protect child/student
information, do not support encryption, or
lack a detailed privacy policy.
Key findings include:
• 38 percent of educational technologies
evaluated indicated they may use children’s
personal and non-personal information for
third-party marketing.
• 40 percent indicate they display
contextual advertising based on the page
content, and 29 percent indicate they show
behavioral ads based on the child’s usage of
the service.
• Among web-based services, 37 per-
cent indicate that collected information
can be used by tracking technologies and
third-party advertisers, 21 percent indicate
the collected data may be used to track
visitors after they leave the site, and 30 per-
cent ignore “do not track” requests or other
mechanisms to opt out.
• 10 percent say they create profiles of
their users.
• 74 percent indicate they maintain the
right to transfer any personal information
they collect if the company is acquired,
merged, or files for bankruptcy.
• Only 11 percent indicate they moder-
ate social interactions between users. Ad-
ditionally, only 14 percent say they review
user-generated content to remove materials
such as gambling, alcohol, violent or sexual
content.
• 50 percent allow children’s informa-
tion to be publicly visible.
“The lack of transparency we found in
the edtech industry is especially troubling,
as there’s a direct correlation between
greater transparency in companies’ policies
and the overall quality of privacy protec-
tions for kids,” said Girard Kelly, Common
Sense’s counsel and director, privacy review.
“When companies are transparent about
their collection, use, and disclosure of per-
sonal information, their practices tend to
be stronger and better for kids and families.
We found only a handful of companies to
be transparent, and this is where change
has to start.”
Common Sense will continue to eval-
uate education software and intends to
publish a follow-up report in 2019 covering
an even larger group of edtech applications
and services in order to continu e advocat-
ing that the entire ecosystem improve the
practices and transparency of its policies to
help keep children’s information in educa-
tional settings safe and used appropriately.
For more information go to www.com-
monsense.org/education/privacy.
ACSA's new Resource Hub offers a plethora of useful information for school leaders
on such issues as student safety, credentialing, increasing community engagement,
deepening student learning, dealing with crises and much more.
Access resources on these and other topics at http://content.acsa.org.
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