Are my students safe?

This is a question we frequently receive. There has been press about Google mining student's emails in Gmail (article). Google did abandon this practice, giving into public pressure (article). Are Portland Public School's (PPS) students safe and protected from this type of prying? The short answer is yes. The Oregon Department of Education (ODE) entered into a contract with Google for statewide use of Google Apps for Education in 2010 that contained the necessary FERPA language to protect our students. The ODE contract allowed districts within Oregon to enter into Inter-Governmental Agreements (IGA) with ODE and piggy back on the statewide agreement. In 2013 PPS took advantage of this opportunity and entered into an IGA with ODE to build a District wide Google Apps domain. If you're using the District domain (apps4pps.net) you are covered by the state-wide agreement.