SchoolMessenger Communicate from West Corporation’s Education group has received the FERPA privacy badge in recognition of its alignment with iKeepSafe’s FERPA guidelines. SchoolMessenger Communicate (and its related InfoCenter app) are tools that help educational agencies and districts deliver school notifications and emergency alerts to parents by text message, voice call, email, and other means.
iKeepSafe’s FERPA badge is the first independent assessment program for the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). The program seeks to help educators and parents identify edtech services and tools that protect student data privacy.
“We take our commitment to school data privacy and security seriously. We were an early signatory of the education technology industry’s Student Privacy Pledge,” said Robert Iskander, general manager, West’s Education group. “Our iKeepSafe badge reinforces the fact that SchoolMessenger Communicate has become the trusted school-to-parent communications platform serving more than half of all schools.”
“iKeepSafe congratulates West’s Education group on taking this essential step in protecting students’ personal information,” said Marsali Hancock, president and CEO of iKeepSafe. “Each day, more school districts and parents are making privacy and safety a priority. It is important that they have a quick means of determining whether technology products are safe to use.”
Products participating in the iKeepSafe FERPA assessment must undergo annual re-evaluation to continue displaying the iKeepSafe FERPA badge. For the evaluation, an independent privacy expert reviewed SchoolMessenger Communicate, its privacy policy and practices, as well as its data security practices.
For more information, visit ikeepsafe.org/products
About West’s Education Group
West’s Education group, part of West Corporation, is the trusted provider of SchoolMessenger solutions. Thousands of schools and other educational institutions in all 50 U.S. states and Canada depend on SchoolMessenger products and services. From notifications and websites to custom mobile apps and social media, school leaders have relied on the SchoolMessenger platform since 1999 to engage with their communities in multiple languages and on any device. To learn more about SchoolMessenger products, visit http://www.schoolmessenger.com or call 888.527.5225.
About SchoolMessenger Communicate and InfoCenter
SchoolMessenger Communicate reaches parents and guardians with school notifications and emergency alerts using SMS text, voice, email, social media, web, and mobile app push notifications. Combined with the free InfoCenter app, Communicate allows schools and districts to contact parents in the ways they want – with all messages sent from a single, simple web-based interface. Built for capacity and reliability, Communicate scales to deliver hundreds of millions of messages accurately and securely.
About iKeepSafe
iKeepSafe is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to help youth thrive in the digital environment, by promoting safe and healthy use of technology. They track trends and conduct research to identify youth needs, as well as solicit expert opinions to develop resources and tools that assist parents, educators, and youth.