Parent expresses concerns over data collection in Warwick schools

WARWICK, R.I. (WJAR) — A data dashboard used by schools nationwide is now generating controversy in Warwick.

Panorama Education is a third-party data dashboard that stores information on students including grades, assessments, access testing for multilingual language students, attendance records, and behavioral data.

Once the data is stored, the program provides teachers a visual display of the progress of students by presenting the information on bar graphs that indicate levels of performance.

Warwick Public Schools adopted the program in 2022 for an annual fee of $83,000, which is currently being paid for by American Rescue Act Plan funds.

Warwick mother Tara Lavasseur has raised concerns about the program from the very beginning, ranging from the behavioral assessments to the bi-annual student surveys.

“They’re basically putting a behavioral characteristic report card on these children every single day, every single week, and then putting it in a system that’s going to follow your child until 12th grade,” she said.

A closer look at Panorama's website shows it tracks various behavioral characteristics, including social awareness and emotional regulation.

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Teachers fill out assessments, then follow a student's progress.

In some cases, there may be a specific intervention goal.

An example on the website under social emotional learning lists the goal as self-efficacy and the strategy as positive self-talk, then details the student’s progress week by week.

Levasseur claims the assessments are subjective and stored inaccurate information on her daughter.

“It’s in the database that she has sensory issues and that she lacks coping skills, and when I took her outside to a therapist, they just said that she needed to adjust," she said.

Levasseur’s daughter is a third-grade student at Holloman Elementary School.

She says she was flagged by teachers for going to the nurse a lot when she had trouble adjusting to her second-grade classroom, which had double the number of classmates from the previous year.

“She was home for COVID, she went back to school in first grade, but it was super structured, super small, she thrived, she did amazing,” Levasseur said. “When she went to second grade with 24 kids, she just needed time to adjust.”

Levasseur is now concerned that assessment on her child’s second grade behaviors will follow her until she graduates high school.

"Every teacher in every grade sees those assessments," Levasseur said. "Then they see those flags, they see those interventions, and they see those behaviors on my child, so that gives those teachers another way, a bias, on how they’re going to assess my child.”

“IT’S BEEN AROUND FOREVER”

The NBC 10 I-Team brought the concerns directly to Warwick Public Schools.

Kristin Murray, the district’s social emotional learning coordinator, says while the database is new, the behavioral assessments are not.

“It’s been around forever; people have commonly called them soft skills," she said.

Teachers observe how students are developing various skills including self-awareness, problem solving and critical thinking.

Murray says years ago, this information was stored on paper, but now it’s stored in a database for added convenience.

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"This is cutting down on the time it takes teachers and allows them to make informed decisions and use their time wisely," Murray said.

She also says the Rhode Island Department of Education requires schools to collect this type of information.

Murray says the assessments and surveys are small pieces to a much larger puzzle:

“We do not use survey results to diagnose anything. As educators, we use this information to help us determine our strengths and areas of growth at the district, school, classroom, and student level. The social emotional learning survey is just one piece of data. It is best practice to use multiple data sources (academic, SEL, etc.) to make informed decisions about the best approach for teaching skills that will improve learning.”

SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING SURVEYS

Research shows Panorama’s student surveys have made headlines in other districts.

A story from NBC 10's sister station in Washington, D.C. found older students were asked about their sexual identity.

The I-Team requested a copy of the survey given to students in Warwick and confirmed questions surrounding sexual identity are not being asked.

Instead, the questions center around four topics: behavior, learning, feelings in general, and help from other people.

“It adds to the whole child approach,” Murray said. “It’s to tell us a little bit about how they’re feeling socially with being aware and being empathetic towards others. It’s helping us learn about their ability to regulate their emotions and how they feel.”

Levasseur believes the surveys are an invasion of privacy.

“Pretty invasive questions, pretty vague questions, and a lot of these kids don’t even know what they’re answering," she said.

Parents can opt their kids out of the surveys, but less than 3% have done so in Warwick.

PRIVACY CONCERNS

The thought of a child’s information being stored on a third-party database may be unnerving to some parents, but Warwick insists the data is safe.

“Panorama Education does not use student data for purposes other than serving schools and districts. When schools work with Panorama, schools own all data and control all data use—not Panorama,” Murray said.

Levasseur worries if a data breach were to occur, information on students and families could end up in the wrong hands.

“It’s got your child’s IEP, your child’s 504 Plan, if you signed up for a federal lunch program it has your family financial information in there,” Levasseur said. “It’s got your bus routes because it’s connected to Aspen, so it knows your bus stop for your child.”

Panorama has the following information on its website about privacy:

“Panorama Education follows best practices for data privacy and security. For example, employees are required to use computers that are provided and centrally managed by Panorama with strict security settings enabled, such as Full Disk Encryption, automatic lockout, and strong passwords. We implement administrative, technical, and physical security controls that protect the information stored on our servers, which are located in the United States.”

While Warwick says they’re willing to address any concerns parents may have, Levasseur claims her worries have been largely ignored.

“Whether schools have done this for hundreds of years or whether they haven’t, it doesn’t make it right. You could argue that schools have always done this, and you can argue that they’re going to continue to do it, it doesn’t make it correct and it doesn’t make it right," she said. "This is still my child’s privacy.”

Parent cannot opt out of the Panorama program entirely.

“That is the way we do business in schools right now,” Murray said. “We don’t do anything by hand, everything gets collected into a database. It’s really the way we are changing education over the last few years.”