How NYC parents can opt out of data sharing and better protect their child’s privacy

Note: This briefing was subsequently rescheduled for Oct. 22, 2025.

October 7, 2025

In May 2025, the NYC Department of Education revised Chancellor’s regulations A-820, to allow DOE and schools to disclose a category of student personal data called Directory Information within the school or to non-school vendors, as long as parents were provided with the right to opt out.

Yet the DOE instructions for parents are difficult to access and understand, requiring clicks across many webpages and forms. In some cases, the webpages omit key details, including which grade levels these disclosures apply to or the deadlines for opting out. In at least case, the deadline listed is from last year.

1. How to opt out of the disclosure of your child’s Directory Information

To simplify the opt out process for parents, the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy has developed a simple one page opt out form that offers all this information in a clear and organized fashion, and can be printed, filled out and handed in at your child’s school.

To be clear, this is an unofficial form that we have created based on the opt out form used by Los Angeles public schools. Though we repeatedly urged DOE to create a similar process, they have refused to do so.  Still, we recommend you print this form , fill it out and hand it in at your school as soon as possible.

• In any case, to ensure that the DOE recognizes your intention to opt out, you should also check our instructions on how to opt out of four different directory information disclosures that DOE intends to make: to charter schools, the military and/or colleges for recruitment purposes, as well as the National Student Clearinghouse.

• Also, here are instructions on how opt out of the NYC Kids Rise savings program, which DOE and the company have made unnecessarily complicated.

• Your school is also supposed to provide you with a separate  form so you can opt out of whatever disclosures they intend to make of directory information, as well as specifying what data will be disclosed if you do not opt out. If you haven’t received that form, you should ask your principal or Parent Coordinator for it asap.

• If any of these disclosures are being made to companies or individuals outside of the school community, there must also be a written agreement or contract that protects the confidentiality of your child’s personal data. This is the only significant improvement that we managed to convince DOE to make to their initial proposed regulations. Ask your principal to provide that written agreement.

2. Additional questions parents should be asking about their children’s privacy and ed tech at their schools

In any case, it is important to note that  the instructions above only deal with the category of directory information given to non-school vendors, generally for non-educational purposes.

DOE and individual schools have also signed up with more than 500 ed tech companies to provide various types of services and programs, which collect and process a vast amount of personal student  data, much of it extremely sensitive. As a result of lax oversight, NYC students have suffered multiple damaging data breaches over the last few years.

While in most cases, parents cannot opt out of this type of disclosure, they do have the right under NY Ed Law 2D to be alerted as to which companies have access to their children’s personal info, how it will be protected from breaches and misuse, and how they can check to see if it is accurate and ask for it to be corrected if necessary. See our Parent Bill of Rights summary.

So if you are concerned about your child’s privacy, here are some additional questions that you should ask your principal or School Leadership Team about the educational apps or programs being used in your child’s classroom and school:

• Request the names of all the programs or apps used by your children, their teachers, and/or school administrators that can access your child’s personal information. Be sure to request the names of all the programs that DOE has told them to use, as well as the programs that the administrators or teachers have chosen that collect or process your child’s personal student data.
• If they seem reluctant, remind them that the state student privacy law, Ed Law 2D, provides parents with the right to see the data collected by outside agencies, companies, organizations or other third parties. Parents cannot do that unless they know the names of these programs or apps.
• Also, ask for a copy of the privacy and security protections for each of these programs, explaining how the data is secured, minimized and deleted when it is no longer necessary to provide specific contracted services.

Some of that information is supposed to be on the DOE website , but we have found that this critical information  is too often entirely missing or incomplete.

• Also: be sure to ask which of these programs use Artificial Intelligence, and which additional privacy protections are provided for these programs, if any. Many AI programs are known to mine personal student data to improve their products, which is illegal under Ed Law 2D and/or its regulations. If you learn their names, please let me know — the DOE has so far refused to provide this info to the AI Working Group of which I am a member.
• You should also ask how many hours per day or per week your child is spending on computers while in school. Now that there is a school cell phone ban, parents should also be concerned about excessive screen time via computers or tablets in schools, as this has been shown to be far less effective in terms of  student learning and engagement than live classroom debate and discussion, as well as reading, writing and math done on paper.

3. Special Privacy briefing on Oct. 20

If you have any concerns or questions about any of this, I will be holding a special privacy briefing for parents on Monday October 20 at 6 PM to go over these issues in more depth.

This is right before the first opt out deadline of October 22 for the disclosure of the personal info of 11^th and 12^th graders for military and/or college recruitment.  You can register for this briefing here.

4. Talk out of School on the risks posed by AI use in the classroom

Finally, last Sunday, I devoted my WBAI radio show to hearing from NYC teachers about their views on the risks involved in using AI in the classroom. Take a listen here!

thanks Leonie