In 2020, Aragon implemented school-wide, biannual student surveys by the Panorama Education company, which collects information about academic needs, self management skills, social awareness, cultural awareness and action, diversity and inclusion, engagement, hate-motivated speech, sense of belonging and teacher-student relationships. While some students report their teacher reassuring them of the survey’s anonymity, the survey is not anonymous, collecting student ID numbers to automatically fill in demographic information from Aeries, a student information system. As the most recent survey asked whether students identified as LGBTQ+, the Aragon Outlook believes that the San Mateo High School Union District should make the Panorama survey fully anonymous.
Under Article 1, Section 1 of the California Constitution, each Californian citizen has the “inalienable right to pursue and obtain privacy.” This protection applies to citizens regardless of age, meaning that students should have a reasonable expectation of privacy when at school. When a captive audience is asked a personal question about their identities in a survey that collects student ID numbers, that is arguably a violation of privacy. Furthermore, in California Attorney General Xavier Becerra’s 2018 “Promoting a Safe and Secure Learning Environment for All: Guidance and Model Policies to Assist California’s K-12 Schools in Responding to Immigration Issues,” it is written that all education agencies must adopt modeling policies that “shall not allow school resources or data to be used to create a registry based on race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity or national origin.”
At the school and district levels, administrators can only see aggregates by student, meaning overall percentage rating scores in the aforementioned categories, but the Panorama Education company has the collected data with names attached, which arguably qualifies as a database, thus violating students’ right to privacy.
Even with a “prefer not to state” answer choice available, the question about students’ sexual orientations pressures students to reveal personal information about themselves. This is not emblematic of Aragon’s stated commitment towards diversity, inclusion and creating safe spaces for students of all orientations, identities and backgrounds. In the past, Aragon has strived to avoid asking invasive questions that violate students’ privacy rights. The school does not organize blood drives, for example, specifically because the Red Cross and other organizations legally must ask questions related to students’ sexual behaviors.
In previous years, Aragon students took the biennial state-mandated California Healthy Kids Survey every year in lieu of the Panorama survey. The CHKS also contained questions about gender identity and sexuality, but the survey was completely anonymous. The district has now implemented the Panorama survey in addition to the CHKS. Unlike the Panorama survey, the CHKS relies on self-reported demographic data. The Panorama survey pulls demographic data from Aeries using student ID numbers, and therefore students do not need to self-report their demographics.
Additionally, the question about students’ identities came as somewhat of a surprise to the Aragon administration. After all the other questions had been approved by the Aragon administration, the Hillsdale High School Student Equity Committee requested adding the question to better understand the perspectives of queer students. The question was then added to the survey across the district, which resulted in backlash from teachers and students at Aragon. Incorporating the responses of LGBTQ+ students in policy discussions and decisions should be prioritized, but their input is impactful even if the responses in question are completely anonymous.
The Aragon Outlook believes the question should either be removed from future surveys, or the surveys themselves should be completely anonymous to protect students’ privacy, and increase transparency about student data protections.
