New York State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele, Jr. (I, D, WF-Sag Harbor) has joined with fellow Assembly colleagues in calling on the State Education Department to suspend their plan for Student Data Sharing. The letter, addressed to State Education Commissioner John King, expressed serious concerns about a plan to share sensitive student data with InBloom, the vendor selected by the department to collect information on New York’s school children.

The letter comes on the heels of a hearing in November on the issue as well as two important pieces of legislation passed by the Assembly earlier this year, A.7872-A (Nolan) and A.6059-A (O'Donnell), to address ongoing concerns related to the distribution of personally identifiable student information.

School districts receiving Race to the Top funds are expected to participate in the EngageNY Portal, an informational instruction system recently established by the State Education Department (SED). The Portal will allow educators, administrators, parents and students to access a variety of additional educational materials, resources and student information. To make this service available, SED has contracted with InBloom, a third-party vendor which collects and stores student information released by SED and school districts. This includes information such as demographics, parental contacts, out-of-school suspension records, course outcomes and state assessment scores.

The Assembly wants to be certain that this personally identifiable information is protected and secure. Until that time, no student data should be shared with InBloom.