Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Putting aside the uselessness of the survey itself, the results letter was incredibly dense and full of jargon. The second sentence is 50 words long! Although the letter sort of says it's not a "grade", the rating scale is very similar to a grade. The entire rating scale is poorly described and the two digit decimal precision is ridiculous. There's also no other context given - how do my kids ratings compare to the overall school average? A friendlier format that fully explains each topic with the student's results and suggested discussion questions would have been far more useful.

There may be some value here, but the average parent either won't understand this letter or worse, completely misunderstand it.

We'll be opting out in the future.

Why didn’t you opt out to begin with?

The SEL screener should never have been opt out.

Those kinds of things need to be opt in with informed parent consent.

Ok. But it wasn’t this year. So agian, why didn’t you opt out?

DP. I filled out the opt out form for my two kids but only one handed it in. The other misplaced it and never turned it in.

The stupidity of the questions and their vagueness is so obvious. My kid got a 2 for "how happy you are with how often race is discussed in school." I know he ranked it low because it's discussed ALL THE TIME. How do you think the schools will use his answer in the way they see fit? Of course, they will interpret it to mean he's dissatisfied with the amount race is discussed because he wants MORE of it. Any parent paying attention could see that coming a mile away.

That’s not acceptable. I emailed our AP to make sure my kids’ forms were turned in. If you felt that strongly about it, you also would have followed through with the proper adults at school to make sure the opt out forms were turned in. My guess is you actually didn’t know because one of your kids got results in the mail. And now you are upset about the results. Sorry, no sympathy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Putting aside the uselessness of the survey itself, the results letter was incredibly dense and full of jargon. The second sentence is 50 words long! Although the letter sort of says it's not a "grade", the rating scale is very similar to a grade. The entire rating scale is poorly described and the two digit decimal precision is ridiculous. There's also no other context given - how do my kids ratings compare to the overall school average? A friendlier format that fully explains each topic with the student's results and suggested discussion questions would have been far more useful.

There may be some value here, but the average parent either won't understand this letter or worse, completely misunderstand it.

We'll be opting out in the future.

It is purposely dense because it is a data mining company.

FCPS has monetized your kids personal musings on a host of issues, without giving you as a parent the opportunity to give informed consent.

This SEL contract is a tremendous violation of parental rights and student privacy.

They did give parents the opportunity to consent by providing the option to opt-out and they informed parents that the “anonymous” survey would be administered through the students’ personal computers owned by the school. Unfortunately, they were not that transparent.
Moving forward, we could use this opportunity to talk to our children about boundaries when it comes to what we are willing to share with others, especially strangers. Also, to explain to them that just because we send them to school it doesn’t necessarily mean we are in agreement with everything they are been presented to by the adults in charge there, especially with things that have no relation to anything academic. We can also encourage them that in the event they are giving a survey or an adult asks personal questions in class, they have the right to refuse taking part in any of these data mining activities, in particular those where strangers inquire about their sexuality and ask that they document it in these surveys. This, if anything, should be an eye opener to them because adults have no business inquiring about sexual topics from minors, therefore we need to have a conversation to empower our kids to set boundaries by refusing to disclose that information by not participating in any activities that require them to discuss such a topic with strangers because doing the opposite would equate to normalizing such behavior.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Putting aside the uselessness of the survey itself, the results letter was incredibly dense and full of jargon. The second sentence is 50 words long! Although the letter sort of says it's not a "grade", the rating scale is very similar to a grade. The entire rating scale is poorly described and the two digit decimal precision is ridiculous. There's also no other context given - how do my kids ratings compare to the overall school average? A friendlier format that fully explains each topic with the student's results and suggested discussion questions would have been far more useful.

There may be some value here, but the average parent either won't understand this letter or worse, completely misunderstand it.

We'll be opting out in the future.

Why didn’t you opt out to begin with?

The SEL screener should never have been opt out.

Those kinds of things need to be opt in with informed parent consent.

Ok. But it wasn’t this year. So agian, why didn’t you opt out?

DP. I filled out the opt out form for my two kids but only one handed it in. The other misplaced it and never turned it in.

The stupidity of the questions and their vagueness is so obvious. My kid got a 2 for "how happy you are with how often race is discussed in school." I know he ranked it low because it's discussed ALL THE TIME. How do you think the schools will use his answer in the way they see fit? Of course, they will interpret it to mean he's dissatisfied with the amount race is discussed because he wants MORE of it. Any parent paying attention could see that coming a mile away.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Putting aside the uselessness of the survey itself, the results letter was incredibly dense and full of jargon. The second sentence is 50 words long! Although the letter sort of says it's not a "grade", the rating scale is very similar to a grade. The entire rating scale is poorly described and the two digit decimal precision is ridiculous. There's also no other context given - how do my kids ratings compare to the overall school average? A friendlier format that fully explains each topic with the student's results and suggested discussion questions would have been far more useful.

There may be some value here, but the average parent either won't understand this letter or worse, completely misunderstand it.

We'll be opting out in the future.

Why didn’t you opt out to begin with?

The SEL screener should never have been opt out.

Those kinds of things need to be opt in with informed parent consent.

Ok. But it wasn’t this year. So agian, why didn’t you opt out?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Putting aside the uselessness of the survey itself, the results letter was incredibly dense and full of jargon. The second sentence is 50 words long! Although the letter sort of says it's not a "grade", the rating scale is very similar to a grade. The entire rating scale is poorly described and the two digit decimal precision is ridiculous. There's also no other context given - how do my kids ratings compare to the overall school average? A friendlier format that fully explains each topic with the student's results and suggested discussion questions would have been far more useful.

There may be some value here, but the average parent either won't understand this letter or worse, completely misunderstand it.

We'll be opting out in the future.

It is purposely dense because it is a data mining company.

FCPS has monetized your kids personal musings on a host of issues, without giving you as a parent the opportunity to give informed consent.

This SEL contract is a tremendous violation of parental rights and student privacy.

They did give parents the opportunity to consent by providing the option to opt-out and they informed parents that the “anonymous” survey would be administered through the students’ personal computers owned by the school. Unfortunately, they were not that transparent.
Moving forward, we could use this opportunity to talk to our children about boundaries when it comes to what we are willing to share with others, especially strangers. Also, to explain to them that just because we send them to school it doesn’t necessarily mean we are in agreement with everything they are been presented to by the adults in charge there, especially with things that have no relation to anything academic. We can also encourage them that in the event they are giving a survey or an adult asks personal questions in class, they have the right to refuse taking part in any of these data mining activities, in particular those where strangers inquire about their sexuality and ask that they document it in these surveys. This, if anything, should be an eye opener to them because adults have no business inquiring about sexual topics from minors, therefore we need to have a conversation to empower our kids to set boundaries by refusing to disclose that information by not participating in any activities that require them to discuss such a topic with strangers because doing the opposite would equate to normalizing such behavior.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Putting aside the uselessness of the survey itself, the results letter was incredibly dense and full of jargon. The second sentence is 50 words long! Although the letter sort of says it's not a "grade", the rating scale is very similar to a grade. The entire rating scale is poorly described and the two digit decimal precision is ridiculous. There's also no other context given - how do my kids ratings compare to the overall school average? A friendlier format that fully explains each topic with the student's results and suggested discussion questions would have been far more useful.

There may be some value here, but the average parent either won't understand this letter or worse, completely misunderstand it.

We'll be opting out in the future.

Why didn’t you opt out to begin with?

The SEL screener should never have been opt out.

Those kinds of things need to be opt in with informed parent consent.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Putting aside the uselessness of the survey itself, the results letter was incredibly dense and full of jargon. The second sentence is 50 words long! Although the letter sort of says it's not a "grade", the rating scale is very similar to a grade. The entire rating scale is poorly described and the two digit decimal precision is ridiculous. There's also no other context given - how do my kids ratings compare to the overall school average? A friendlier format that fully explains each topic with the student's results and suggested discussion questions would have been far more useful.

There may be some value here, but the average parent either won't understand this letter or worse, completely misunderstand it.

We'll be opting out in the future.

Why didn’t you opt out to begin with?

Anonymous wrote:Putting aside the uselessness of the survey itself, the results letter was incredibly dense and full of jargon. The second sentence is 50 words long! Although the letter sort of says it's not a "grade", the rating scale is very similar to a grade. The entire rating scale is poorly described and the two digit decimal precision is ridiculous. There's also no other context given - how do my kids ratings compare to the overall school average? A friendlier format that fully explains each topic with the student's results and suggested discussion questions would have been far more useful.

There may be some value here, but the average parent either won't understand this letter or worse, completely misunderstand it.

We'll be opting out in the future.

Anonymous wrote:Putting aside the uselessness of the survey itself, the results letter was incredibly dense and full of jargon. The second sentence is 50 words long! Although the letter sort of says it's not a "grade", the rating scale is very similar to a grade. The entire rating scale is poorly described and the two digit decimal precision is ridiculous. There's also no other context given - how do my kids ratings compare to the overall school average? A friendlier format that fully explains each topic with the student's results and suggested discussion questions would have been far more useful.

There may be some value here, but the average parent either won't understand this letter or worse, completely misunderstand it.

We'll be opting out in the future.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wish schools would incorporate social skills and social emotional lessons into the curriculum. Those are critical life skills. Instead, they waste money on collecting this data and then nothing.

Oh MY GOD! THey do! They waste a TON of time on this! My dd's teacher spent THIRTY FULL MINUTES every virtual school day on Positivity Project Schleck. More instructional time then for real subjects. Its ridiculous.

Yep. In high school, it’s an actual period/block. That’s where they administer this and all the other idiotic surveys my kids have gotten this year. Unreal how much time these buffoons waste. So happy to be almost done with FCPS.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did someone secretly make a fortune off this? What the heck was the point of spending millions of dollars on this steaming pile of garbage? Its not even a scientific/data driven type questionnaire that tells us how students actually are feeling---its just a report based on how the kids answered the questions. Think of all the tutors they could have paid for instead of this pointless shite.

The purpose of this SEL survey is data mining of our kids.

They have your kids info and were granted FERPA, but they are not eligible for FOIA requests and accountability.

The company also has links to Facebook.

Given the nature of the questions and the long term tracking and data mining of your minor children that FCPS agreed to on your behalf, every last parent should demand that their kids are opted out and their data purged.

This monetizing of our kids should never have been allowed.

I hope that the new administration does something about situations like this.

Private companies should never have this much and this kind of access to our kids without informed parental consent. The SEL survey should be opt in, not opt out.