February 2022 - Kate York - Compliance Director
Email is an easy way to communicate with students and parents. Before sending an email, it's essential to evaluate the risk associated with sending student information and recognize if it is personally identifiable information (PII). Any time you share FERPA-Protected PII, there's a risk it will end up in the wrong place or in the wrong hands. We can mitigate that risk with a combination of technology and common sense.
PII can be either directory information or non-directory information. PII could include a piece of private information or even a combination of seemingly non-identifiable information or directory information that might allow someone in the school community to identify the student.
SAFELY EMAILING PII
Before you hit send, remember: if your email includes FERPA-protected PII, sending the email could disclose information in a way you did not intend. Follow these best practices for email communications:
- Review your school's policies about FERPA-Protected PII.
- Limit the use of student data to the purposes within the scope of your job responsibilities.
- DO NOT include more information than necessary.
- Double-check the recipient's email address, especially for bulk emails and cc's.
- Try to include sensitive information in a protected file attachment, not in the body of the email. Password protect any email attachments containing student PII or data.
- Remember to double-check the attachment. Make sure the file you attached is the one you intend to send!
- Use strong passwords.
- If you're sending a confidential email, please ensure to indicate "Confidential" in the subject line of the email, followed by "DO NOT FORWARD."
- You can securely share files via Google Drive - ensure that the Share settings are set only to those who require access to the file.
- Do not transmit student-level data externally unless necessary, then only transmit data via approved secure methods.
Contact your data privacy specialist at kyork@apamail.org with any questions or concerns about student data privacy.
Review Email and Student Privacy in this video below.
December 2021 - Kate York - Compliance Director
Beginning with the 2022- 2023 school year, if a school imposes a fee, the fee shall be equal to or less than the expense incurred by the school in providing for a student the activity, course, or program for which the school imposes the fee.
A school may not impose an additional fee or increase a fee to supplant or subsidize another fee.
Keep in mind that many of the maximum fee amounts listed on the 22-23 Fee Schedule are not a flat fee, and amounts charged to students during the year may need to be adjusted based on actual costs.
Please contact the District School Fee contact, Kate York, with any questions.
July 2021 - Welcome New Compliance Team Members and Time & Effort Updates
Our Compliance team is excited to introduce new team members. Would you please join us in welcoming Lauren Butterfield and Randi Hillaker?
Lauren Butterfield is one of our new Compliance Assistants. Lauren will be working as our new Title III (English
Language Learners) Director. She will manage the Compliance Calendar, assist with federal and state reports, support the new IEP processes, and participate with other Compliance tasks throughout the year. Lauren has been with APA for six years, working at the West Valley campuses, mainly in Elementary. She is from Sandy, UT, and has lived there all her life. Lauren likes writing, singing, and going on long drives. She loves her family, her two cats, and a good joke. Lauren is so excited to be a part of the compliance team!
Randi Hillaker is also new to the Compliance team. She will be serving as our new Title I Director and managing compliance for our afterschool grants and the Title III program in our West Valley locations and has an office located at the West Valley 2 campus. Randi spent the past couple of years as a Business Systems Analyst. Before that, she worked in the financial industry as a manager and in education as a teacher, administrator, and athletic coach. She has two boys who both attend APA. She has been an APA parent for nine years. Randi loves spending time with her boys, watching them play sports, and spending time outdoors.
The Compliance Team's mission is to clear the way for our admin and staff so that they can continue to do what's best for our students and families. We are so excited for the experience and "can do" attitude that Lauren and Randi are bringing to this effort!
July 2021 TEC Updates
What is a Time and Effort Certification
All APA employees are paid from one or more funding programs or cost objectives. Some employee distributions are attributed to the percentage of their time working in that program. Some employee distributions may be attributed to cost categories according to eligibility factors instead of time in programs. Employees must acknowledge the percentage of their time paid from these cost objectives. This documentation is done in the form of time/effort certifications or TECs.
Why TEC's are important - Time/Effort Certifications (TECs) are required for Federal and State reporting. Almost every employee will have a TEC to sign, which lists their position and from which program(s) their salary is paid. TECs must be completed every pay period.
The included program(s) on an employee's TEC may be affected by: campus, position, responsibilities, grade levels served, students served (Gifted, IEP or ELL, for example), employee credentials, or other factors. Therefore, you and your supervisor must be familiar with the funding programs listed on your TEC. For an abbreviated list of APA's funding programs and descriptions, see the APA Funding Programs document here.
The work you complete throughout the school year may be eligible under multiple funding programs. Therefore, you might see changes to program cost objectives and/or percentage(s) between pay periods even if your work assignment has not changed. If you notice changes to the cost objectives, please familiarize yourself with those program fund descriptions in the link above.
For every TEC, an employee should see:
- Employee name, position, campus
- Certification period: pay period
- Funding program(s) or cost objective(s)
- Distribution of time and/or funding: percentage(s) totaling 100%
Please verify that all of the listed information is correct on your TEC. If there are any updates or discrepancies (such as change of campus or position), or if you have any questions or concerns about the program funds that you are asked to certify, please contact Christine Wright (cwright@apamail.org) or your supervisor.
July 10th, 2020 - Expense Reports - APA employees have a new Expense Report form available. Please begin using this report rather than the previous version. Click here to download the new form.
Expense Report Reminders and required items:
- Receipts - Please provide receipts with each Expense Report
- Employee signature & Supervisor name and signature are required
- Please provide adequate details in the purchase notes for every purchase, such as classroom budget, grant (if known), event, etc.
4/25/20 - Translation Services
APA not only has talented staff but multi-lingual skilled staff! Communications to our families should be made available in their native language where possible. Communications at our West Valley campuses must go out in at least English and Spanish.
APA administrative staff has compiled a list of bilingual staff available to assist with the translation of communications.
Please reach out to your Administrative Director if you need assistance translating communications to families that do not speak English as their first language.
Thank you, everyone!
April 18th, 2020 - Student Data Privacy – Best Practices at Home
To safeguard our students' data while working at home, teachers should ensure they do not leave their laptops with student information open, unlocked, or available. If you walk away from your computer, ensure that you have locked or closed it and that your computer settings will prompt you for a password upon your return. If someone else in your household must use your laptop, please set up a guest account to ensure there is no unauthorized access to student data.
April 11th, 2020 - Student Data Privacy – Educational Apps
American Preparatory Academy takes seriously its moral and legal responsibility to protect student privacy and ensure data security.
An essential step for protecting student privacy is checking beforehand on the use of educational apps or websites. There are many resources available, but each must be approved through your supervisor, then Kate York and David Bowman before use. Some of these apps and websites may collect personal data and target advertising to students; it is our responsibility to ensure that any resources used by our students will not leave their personal information vulnerable.
Please see the FAQ from the USBE's Student Data Privacy and Digital Teaching and Learning Teams.