information

Student Privacy and Session Safety Policy

At a glance

Parents and guardians, not children, give us information. We never collect personal information from a child directly online.
Every tutoring session is a live, one-to-one video session hosted by an ETS tutor on an ETS-managed account, with a waiting room and passcode. [Sessions are not recorded.]
The student joins by a link the parent receives. The child does not need an account of their own.
Supplemental practice after homework uses i-Ready and IXL, on accounts ETS creates with the student’s first name and grade only.
We never sell, rent, or share student information for advertising or marketing. Sponsoring organizations see only what this policy describes.
Every tutor is background-checked before their first session and follows written conduct rules, including no contact with a student outside scheduled sessions.

1. Who this policy covers

This policy explains how ETS handles information about students and their families when we provide one-to-one tutoring, whether a family enrolls directly or through a sponsoring organization such as an employer, a card or membership program, a health plan, a school district, or a child-welfare agency.

2. What we collect

From the parent or guardian at enrollment:

Parent’s name, email address, mobile number, and state of residence.
Employer, program, or member code, if the family is enrolling through a sponsoring organization.
Student’s first name, grade, the subject to focus on first, and preferred days and times.
Whether the student has an IEP or 504 plan, if the parent chooses to tell us, so we can match a tutor who specializes in that support. Sharing this is optional.
Anything else the parent wants the tutor to know, in the parent’s own words.

From sponsoring organizations

Schools, districts, and child-welfare agencies that refer a student may share the student’s name, grade, school, and the academic goals for the referral. Employers and card or membership programs do not share cardholder or employee information with us; the parent enrolls directly.

Created during tutoring

Attendance, session notes written by the tutor, diagnostic and progress results from i-Ready and IXL, and the progress reports we prepare.

Payment information

Payments are processed by Stripe. Card numbers are entered on Stripe’s secure page and never reach ETS systems. We receive only a confirmation of payment and the last four digits of the card.

What we do not collect

Social Security numbers, a child’s email address, a child’s photo or video outside the live session, precise location, or any information from a child’s device.

3. How we use it

To match the student with the right tutor and keep the same tutor with that student week after week.
To schedule and run sessions and to send the parent the session link and reminders.
To measure progress and report it to the parent, and to the referring school or agency when they are the contracting party.
To bill the family or the sponsoring organization and to keep the records the law requires.
To respond to questions from the parent.We do not use student information to build advertising profiles, we do not send marketing to children, and we do not sell or rent any personal information to anyone.

4. Live video sessions

Sessions take place on Zoom or Google Meet.
The tutor hosts. Every session runs on an ETS-managed account, never on a tutor’s personal account. ETS business Zoom and Google Workspace Accounts.
One link per family. The parent receives a unique meeting link. A waiting room and passcode are on for every session, and the tutor admits only the expected student.
No account needed for the child. The student joins from the link on a parent’s or student’s device. Children are never asked to create a Zoom or Google account for ETS tutoring.
Recording. [Sessions are not recorded by ETS or its tutors. A recording is made only when a parent asks for one in writing, and it is shared only with that parent.]
Screen sharing and whiteboard. Tutors share lesson materials and a whiteboard. Students are never asked to share their screen unless a parent has agreed and the tutor needs to see the student’s own work.
Chat. In-session chat is used only for lesson content. [Chat logs are not saved after the session.]
A parent may sit in at any time, without notice, and may end a session at any point.

5. Supplemental practice after homework

When homework is finished and time remains, tutors use i-Ready and IXL for reading and math practice matched to the student’s level. These are the same research-based programs used in public schools nationwide.
ETS creates and controls the student’s account. The account holds the student’s first name [or first name and last initial], grade, and the student’s practice results. It contains no email address, no home address, and no payment information.
The account is used only for ETS tutoring and is [deactivated within 30 days] after the student’s last session.
i-Ready (Curriculum Associates) and IXL Learning are bound by their own student-privacy commitments and process student information only to provide the service to ETS. Neither is permitted to advertise to students or to sell student information.

6. Children under 13 (COPPA)

We collect a child’s information from the parent or guardian, or from a school or agency acting for the child, never from the child directly through a website or app.
Enrollment by the parent is the parent’s consent to the collection and use described in this policy. The parent may withdraw consent at any time.
A parent may review the information we hold about their child, ask us to correct it, ask us to delete it, or refuse further collection, by contacting us as described in Section 12. We respond within [30] days.
We collect only what tutoring requires and never make a child’s participation depend on giving us more than that.

7. Students referred by schools and agencies

When a school district, health plan, or child-welfare agency refers a student, education records they share with us are used only to tutor that student and to report progress to the referring organization. We treat those records the way a school official would under FERPA: no re-disclosure, no secondary use, and return or destruction at the end of the engagement as the contract requires. [Confirm the standard return-or-destroy term in your agency contracts.]

8. Who can see student information

The assigned tutor sees the student’s first name, grade, goals, the parent’s notes, and the student’s own work.
ETS administrators see enrollment and billing records in order to run the program.
The parent or guardian can see everything we hold about their child.
Referring schools and agencies, when they are the contracting party, receive attendance and progress reports.
Employers and card or membership programs receive only counts: how many families enrolled through their program and how many hours were used. They never receive a child’s name, session content, or progress information.
Service providers that help us operate (video conferencing, i-Ready, IXL, Stripe, email, and our enrollment database) receive only what they need to perform their function and may not use it for anything else.
We disclose information beyond this only when the law requires it, or to protect a child’s safety, in which case we tell the parent unless the law forbids it.

9. Tutor screening and conduct

Every ETS tutor, before working with any student:

Passes a criminal background check and a sex-offender registry check: National criminal, sex-offender registry, and state child-abuse clearances where required.
Holds a college degree and American Tutoring Association certification, and completes ETS’s trauma-informed practice training.
Signs ETS’s student-safety conduct rules, which include: no contact with a student outside scheduled sessions on any channel, no social media connection with a student, no exchange of personal phone numbers or emails, no gifts, camera on for the whole session, and a duty to report any concern about a child’s welfare to ETS the same day. [ETS’s reporting duties as a mandated reporter, if applicable in your states.]

A violation of these rules ends the tutor’s work with ETS.

10. How we protect information

Information travels over encrypted connections (TLS) and is stored in access-controlled systems located in the United States.
Access is limited to the people named in Section 8, on a need-to-know basis, and is removed when it is no longer needed.
Payments are handled by Stripe, a PCI DSS Level 1 service provider; ETS never stores card numbers.
If a security incident affects student information, we notify the affected parents and any contracting organization promptly, and we comply with state breach-notification laws.

11. How long we keep information

Enrollment, attendance, and progress records are kept for [three years] after the student’s last session, or longer only when a contract or law requires it, then deleted.
i-Ready and IXL accounts are [deactivated within 30 days] after the last session.
Session recordings, when a parent has requested one, are deleted [30 days] after they are shared with the parent.
A parent may ask us to delete their child’s records sooner, and we will, except for records we must keep for billing or legal reasons.

12. Your rights and how to reach us

A parent or guardian may at any time:

Ask what information we hold about their child and receive a copy.
Correct anything that is wrong.
Ask us to delete the child’s information.
Withdraw consent and stop tutoring.

We answer privacy requests within [30] days and never charge for them.