Privacy Policy

ParentSquare Privacy Policy

Last Updated: August 19, 2022

Overview

ParentSquare is a simple platform for communications between home and school. ParentSquare is designed for whole-school adoption and collaborative use by district administrators, principal, school administrators, teachers, staff, parent leaders and parents at preK-12 districts and schools. Users can share messages about school logistics and student classroom learning along with pictures and files, volunteer requests and class supply lists, calendar and directory information.

Commitment to Your Privacy

ParentSquare understands that privacy is extremely important to users of our services and website, the district, school or organization that registers for our services (“School”), and the students, their parents and other users whose information we may access on behalf of a School.

Our goal is to be transparent in our practices regarding collection and data usage. This privacy policy covers all products and services delivered by ParentSquare, Inc. Previous versions of our privacy policy are available upon request. A translated version of ParentSquare’s privacy policy is available upon request.

Please see the following information about the information we collect while providing services, how we use it and other details.

Data Covered and Written Agreements

All data that ParentSquare collects is covered under this privacy policy. This includes personal information provided to ParentSquare as a service provider by School pursuant to our School Agreement or a separate written agreement with School (in either case, the “Agreement”), or collected by ParentSquare as a service provider at the direction of School. This policy along with Agreement and applicable laws govern its handling of personal information gathered in its capacity as a service provider.

If this privacy policy expressly contradicts Agreement with ParentSquare as to the data privacy and security practices, Agreement will govern to the extent of the contradiction.

Please make sure that you read the ParentSquare Terms of Use to understand additional terms and conditions that apply to the use of our services and website.

Information We Collect

We collect two types of information: personal information your School knowingly chooses to disclose that is collected on an individual basis, and website-use information collected on an aggregate basis as you and others browse our website.

Basic Information Your School Provides to Us

Admin Role: We use name, ID, title, phone number, email address, address, group memberships, school memberships and district memberships from school-provided data.
Staff Role: We use name, ID, title, phone number, email address, address, group memberships, school memberships and district memberships from school-provided data.
Teacher Role: We use name, ID, title, phone number, email address, address, classes, section, group memberships, school memberships and district memberships from school-provided data.
Student Role: We use name, ID, address, gender, grade level, enrolled courses, other enrolled groups, extracurricular activities and family relationships from school-provided data. For schools using StudentSquare, this may include email addresses and phone numbers
Parent/Guardian/Contact Role: We use name, relationship to student, phone number, email address, address, communication language, group memberships, school memberships and district memberships from school-provided data. from school-provided data.
Emergency-Only Contact Role (if applicable): We use name, phone number, email address and any emergency contact information from school-provided data.
Guest/External Member Role: If provided, we use name, phone number, email address, address, group memberships, school memberships and district memberships from school-provided data.

Additional Contact Information Your School May Provide to Us About Students

The School may also choose to provide additional student information such as their English language learning status, enrollment in free and reduced lunch programs, attendance records, lunch balances, bus routes, grades and assignments if the School is using the corresponding ParentSquare feature.

The School may choose to use StudentSquare to provide students with ParentSquare logins to communicate with students within ParentSquare. In such cases, we collect the login credentials for students provided to us by the School, which may include a student’s email address and cell phone number. In this way, ParentSquare collects and shares personal information and education records from PK-12 students, including children under 13 years of age.

Pursuant to Children’s Online Privacy and Protection Act (“COPPA”), ParentSquare relies on the School’s consent on behalf of parents in order to allow those under 13 years of age to use our services. If we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under age 13 other than pursuant to the above, or if we learn that a child under 13 has provided us personal information beyond what we request from them, we will delete that information as quickly as possible after we have been notified internally or by impacted customers.

If you have questions about modifying or deleting personal information of a student, please contact your School directly.

Information You Provide to Us

In addition to the information about you provided by the School, you may choose to provide additional information about yourself in your user profile, such as your profession, talent, interests and abilities. All information you provide voluntarily may be made accessible to users in your School. This information is not shared with users outside of your School.

Information We Collect when You Interact With ParentSquare

In addition to the personal information you and your School provide to us, we also collect usage information as you interact with ParentSquare. Collecting this information allows us for more accurate reporting and helps us to improve our services.

The following describes how we use this information:

a. Site Activity Information. We monitor some of the actions you perform on ParentSquare. For example, if you make a comment on a post, we both log the fact that you added a comment as well as store the actual comment itself.

b. Notification Activity Information. We monitor email delivery, text delivery, app downloads, and engagement through clicks in order to understand your interaction with our services and improve your experience with ParentSquare. We may include clear gifs in the HTML-based emails we send our Schools in order to track which emails are being opened and which links are being clicked on by recipients.

c. Access Device and Browser Information. When you access ParentSquare from a computer, mobile phone, or other device, we collect information from that device such as your browser type, operating system, unique device identifier, IP address, the date and time of visits, and the time spent at our website.

d. Cookie Information. We may send one or more cookies to be stored on your computer in order to personalize your experience with ParentSquare and make our services easier to use. A cookie is a small text file containing a string of alphanumeric characters that allows us to uniquely identify your browser and allows you to log in automatically whenever you return to ParentSquare. We also use cookies to identify and maintain your logged status as well as enhance your navigation through the website. You can remove or block cookies using the technical settings of your browser though you may not be able to do so on certain browsers or mobile devices. Note that disabling cookies may impact your ability to use our services fully, so we recommend that you leave them enabled for the quality of your experience.

Information We Do Not Collect when You Interact With ParentSquare

ParentSquare only collects data related to providing services for Schools. We do not explicitly collect criminal records, medical records, social security numbers, biometric information, disabilities, political affiliations, religious affiliations, discipline records or behavioral assessments.

How We Use Information

Your privacy and your child’s privacy is extremely important to us. The student data we collect is used for communication and educational purposes at the discretion of your School only. We use the information we collect to provide a safe, efficient, and customized experience for our users.

Here are some of ways we use this information:

To Manage the Service

We use the information we collect to provide personalized services and features to you and provide you with customer support. In addition we use the information we collect to analyze how you use the services and features so that we can measure and improve those services and features.

To Contact You

We may contact you with service-related announcements from time to time. This includes contacting you for any school related activities. We may include content you see on ParentSquare in the emails we send to you. We may also contact you in order to notify you about important changes to our services.

To Provide Relevant Information To Your School

We use the information we collect to report usage levels to your School. This allows your School to monitor how successful their communications are so that they can improve their use of ParentSquare.

How We Share Information

What Can Other Users in ParentSquare See

Access to the School’s ParentSquare services and website is restricted to parents and staff at your School, and other users that the School may deem appropriate, e.g., Board Members. Users can only view posts addressed to the entire School and to any groups or classes they or their child belongs to. Parents do not see posts for classes and private groups they do not belong to. All users are responsible for maintaining the security of their password. Notwithstanding the foregoing, your School may choose to share some ParentSquare posts and associated pictures on social websites, such as Twitter and Facebook. ParentSquare will require your School to confirm that it has prior permission before doing so. Sharing posts and pictures on social websites will make the posts and pictures viewable by users outside of ParentSquare, and ParentSquare’s privacy policy will no longer apply to those posts and pictures. All such posts will be clearly marked so ParentSquare users can know that those posts are shared via social networks. Your contact information, i.e., your email, phone and address may be made available to other registered parents at your School as part of an online School Directory according to your School’s discretion. This information is not shared outside of the School or with any third parties. You have the option to adjust your settings to keep all your contact information (email, phone and address) hidden from other parents at your School.

Sharing and Disclosure of Information

ParentSquare uses the data received from the School for the sole purpose of delivering products and services to the School. We do not rent, trade, or sell or otherwise distribute your information to any third parties and will only disclose information when allowed by FERPA and required a) by applicable laws or government orders or b) to maintain and operate our service or c) when authorized by the School.

ParentSquare may acquire information (including Personally Identifiable Information or “PII”) from the school SIS/SMS or other school systems such as payroll systems, nutrition systems, fee systems, etc through a School-requested integration.

ParentSquare provides links to external websites for purposes which are intended solely to support the school’s day-to-day operations. The School or its users may post links within ParentSquare or StudentSquare to external websites for which we have no control.

How do we work with Third Party Service Providers?

We work with a number of third party service providers and contractors to maintain and operate our service.

We use third party service providers:

For secure credit card transaction processing for supporting payments in ParentSquare.
To provide customer support communication to our users.
To analyze use of our website and app.
For our blog and to facilitate social sharing on our blog.
To send emails, texts and phone calls.
For hosting our services and databases.
Providing additional services to the School such as mailing services, background checks for volunteers, lesson plans, newsletters and other optional features.
To log into our service using Google, Clever, SIS or a district-managed SSO integration.

Before ParentSquare engages with a third party where we may share PII, we ensure that their privacy policy is at least as strict as ours.

ParentSquare shall not provide any PII to any person, party or organization ineligible to receive student records and/or student record data and information protected by FERPA, federal regulation, state law or regulation or so prohibited from receiving school data.

A list of the third-party services we currently use, the data that is shared, as well as links to their privacy policies, can be found here.

No Advertising

ParentSquare does not use student or user records or data collected for purposes of targeted advertising, and no student profile is built by ParentSquare for reasons other than furtherance of School purposes.

Corporate Restructuring

In the case of a corporate event such as a sale of assets, a future sale, or a merger of ParentSquare with another organization, we may transfer your personal information. However, we will provide you with notice and an opportunity to opt-out of the transfer of personally identifiable student data if the new organization does not have a privacy policy at least as stringent as our own.

How We Protect Information

ParentSquare complies with, or works with the School to jointly ensure compliance with, Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (“FERPA”) and all other applicable confidentiality and privacy laws and rules, and requires its employees, consultants, and subcontractors to similarly comply.

Security

We take great measures in keeping your data safe and secure. ParentSquare uses secure infrastructure to ensure that student data is encrypted during transfer and at rest. Access to ParentSquare is authenticated through username/password. ParentSquare stores and protects your account information on a secured server behind a firewall. We utilize encryption/security software to safeguard the confidentiality of personal information we collect.

Data Breach Policy

If ParentSquare becomes aware of a security breach of its users’ personally identifiable information, ParentSquare will notify the School as well as the affected users if asked to do so by the School or as required by applicable laws.

Definition
A breach is any unauthorized acquisition of computerized data that compromises the security, confidentiality, or integrity of personal information that we maintain.

Personal Information
Personal information is defined as any unencrypted information containing individuals’ names or initials, contact information such as email address or phone number, state or district identification numbers and other personal identifiers. This also includes direct messages inadvertently sent to the wrong recipient.

Timeframe
In the event of a data breach, the goal is to provide notice to affected Schools within 2 business days after we’ve been made aware of the breach.

Recipients of the Notice
We will notify the School(s) to which those users belong via the administrative contact information on record. We will assist in notifying impacted users if requested to do so by the School.

Information in the Notice
The security breach report shall be written in plain language, shall be titled “Notice of Data Breach” or “Data Exposure Report,” and shall present the information described herein under the following headings:

What happened: A general description of the breach incident and why the breach happened. The notification shall also include the date of the breach and the notice.
What was done to resolve the issue: Details regarding the resolution and any additional actions taken to prevent a similar breach in the future.
What user data was affected: The estimated number of staff and student families affected by the breach, if any. A list of the types of personal information that were or are reasonably believed to have been the subject of a breach.
What are the next steps for you: If there are actions required on the part of the School related to the breach, we will provide detailed instructions and assist in remediation.

ParentSquare may provide additional information as a supplement to the notice.

Information Hosted in the United States

ParentSquare and all of our data is hosted within the United States. Please note that if you use our service from a country or region with laws differing from the United States’ laws governing the collection and production of data, you may be transferring your personal information outside of the jurisdiction of your region and to the United States. By using our service, you consent to the transfer, use and storage of your personal information in accordance with our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

Data Retention and Destruction

For more information on the ParentSquare data retention and destruction policy, please contact privacy@parentsquare.com.

Choices About Your Information

Managing Your Account

You may review, update, and correct the information in your account by logging into ParentSquare, or in many cases, from your Student Information/Management System (SIS/SMS) portal. Your School may not allow you to update your account information directly in ParentSquare. In such an event, an alternate School contact or instructions will be provided for you to update your ParentSquare contact information or you may be able to update in the SIS/SMS portal. You are able to adjust your notification settings within ParentSquare so that you receive instant or digest notifications for app notifications, emails and texts, or you may opt out of ParentSquare communications and receive no notifications at all. If you choose not to receive notifications from ParentSquare this will not stop you from receiving emergency notifications, for example those regarding school closure, threats, etc.

Deleting Your Account

If you or your child graduates from the School or leaves the School and you are no longer associated with the School, the School will delete your account, i.e., you will no longer be able to access your information on ParentSquare and no other ParentSquare user will be able to access your personal information either, including your School unless for legal reasons. We will retain and use your information as necessary in order to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, prevent abuse, and enforce our agreements. In case of accidental deletion, we will be able to restore the account on request if a request is made within thirty (30) days.

If you cease to agree with ParentSquare’s terms of use and privacy policy at some point in the future or if you no longer desire our service, please contact the School directly to delete your account. You may also contact us at privacy@parentsquare.com. We will get in touch with your School to honor your request and respond within a reasonable time not exceeding thirty (30) days. We will retain your information for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide services to you and your School.

European Union Residents

Our computer systems are currently based in the United States, so your personal data entered at our Site or related to your use of our services (i) will not be processed in the European Economic Area (EEA) and (ii) will be processed by our service providers or us in the United States and other non-EEA countries. By using ParentSquare, you (a) agree to and accept the terms stated in this Privacy Policy and (b) expressly consent to the processing of your personal data on equipment and by service providers outside the European Economic Area. If you reside in the European Union and we do not seek your explicit consent to process your personal data, we are relying on the legitimate commercial interest of our company in providing the services to you and other customers and the need to process your personal data as previously described in order to accomplish that legitimate interest. You also have the right to withdraw consent and request that we halt processing of your personal data at any time. This withdrawal of consent does not invalidate the consent-based processing that occurred prior to withdrawal. As an EU resident, you also have the following rights under the General Data Protection Regulation:

Right of access to personal data
Right to rectification of personal data held where it is incorrect or incomplete
Right of erasure of personal data (“right to be forgotten”) if certain grounds are met
Right to restrict/suspend processing of personal data
Right to complain to a supervisory authority
Right to object to processing (if processing is based on legitimate interests)
Right to object to processing of personal data for direct marketing purposes
Right to receive your personal data in a standard electronic format (data portability)

You may withdraw this consent or exercise any of the foregoing rights applicable to you by contacting the Privacy Officer at the address below or notifying us at privacy@parentsquare.com.

California Residents

ParentSquare complies with, or works with the School to jointly ensure compliance with, all applicable state and federal laws and regulations pertaining to data privacy and security, including FERPA, COPPA, PPRA, SOPIPA, AB 1584 and all other California privacy statutes. If you are a California resident, please see here for more information.

Changes to Our Privacy Policy

We reserve the right to change, modify, add, or remove portions of this Privacy Notice. ParentSquare will notify School administrators “in writing” or via email of material changes to this privacy policy, including practices around new or additional data collection, or practices that may lessen the previously noted protections around student data privacy. We will also post a changelog here, please refer to this for additional updates.

If you have any questions or would like further clarification about ParentSquare or this Privacy Notice, please e-mail us at privacy@parentsquare.com.

Change Log

Last Updated: August 19, 2022

Addition of “Data Covered and Written Agreements” paragraph
Change title from “No Disclosure to Third Parties” to “Sharing and Disclosure of Information”

March 4, 2022

Under “Access Device and Browser Information” we have updated the device and browser information we collect as part of a security enhancement regarding session management
Updated our list of third-party service providers referenced in the section “How do we work with Third Party Service Providers?”

June 15, 2021

External review for compliance with applicable laws & guidelines
Improved transparency regarding how we use your personal information and with which service providers we share this information
Added details about our data breach policy
Addition of California privacy information
Addition of a “Change Log” to provide additional historical information about ongoing changes to our Privacy Policy.

How to Contact Us

If you have questions or concerns pertaining to your information, your registration, your account, or unsubscribing please contact your School directly. Otherwise if you have questions about this privacy policy or ParentSquare, you may contact us at privacy@parentsquare.com.

You can also direct inquiries via phone at 888-496-3168 or in writing to:

ParentSquare Privacy Officer
ParentSquare INC
6144 Calle Real, #200A, Goleta, CA 93117.