A gradebook without putting student names online

1 Why a gradebook deserves extra care

A gradebook is the most sensitive list most teachers keep. It joins two things: who a student is, and how they are doing. Either one alone is ordinary. Together they are exactly the kind of information that privacy law and school policy are written to protect.

Under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), education records are records directly related to a student and maintained by a school or by someone acting for it. The Department of Education's guidance on online services explains that personally identifiable information includes direct identifiers, such as a student's name, and indirect ones, such as a date of birth or place of birth. A list of names with marks next to them is plainly both.

The risk with online tools is not usually a dramatic breach. It is quieter: a free site that asks you to type the class list, keeps it on its servers, and has terms you never read. Once the names are there, you cannot easily get them back, and your district may not know they were ever sent. The simplest way to avoid that is to choose tools that never ask for names at all, or that keep them where you can see them.

2 What federal law says, in plain words

FERPA

FERPA is a federal law that gives parents the right to see their child's education records, to ask for corrections, and some control over who else sees personally identifiable information from those records. Those rights pass to the student at 18 or when they enroll in college. The Department of Education's guidance says a school generally needs written consent before sharing that information with an online provider, unless an exception applies; the one used most for school software is the school official exception, which requires, among other things, that the provider be under the school's direct control and use the records only for the purposes the school allowed.

Some records are not education records at all. The Student Privacy Policy Office lists notes kept only by the person who made them, used only as a personal memory aid and shown to no one except a temporary substitute. A gradebook you share with a co-teacher, a principal or a family doesn't fit that description. Grades on papers students mark for each other are also outside the definition until the teacher collects and records them.

COPPA

The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, enforced by the Federal Trade Commission, covers websites and apps that collect personal information from children under 13. The FTC's guidance says a school can sometimes consent for parents when an operator collects student information only for an educational purpose, and that the district or school, rather than an individual teacher, should decide whether a service is appropriate.

The practical point for a gradebook: a tool that never receives names or marks is not collecting them, and that is the easiest kind of tool to justify. The student data privacy guide covers these laws and PPRA in more detail.

3 Your district's gradebook comes first

Your school almost certainly has an official gradebook, often part of its student information system. That is where report card grades belong, because it is the system the district has reviewed, signed agreements for and can answer to parents about. Nothing in this guide replaces it.

What teachers usually need besides the official gradebook is a working place for marks: the quick check from this morning, the exit ticket tally that decides tomorrow's groups, a reading level noted during a running record, practice scores that won't count. That working gradebook is where privacy slips happen, because it is where teachers reach for whatever free tool is handy.

• Ask before you start. Find out what your district allows for working records: paper only, district-approved apps, files on district computers.
• Read the free-tools rule. The Department of Education's guidance recommends that free online services go through the same or a similar approval process as paid ones, and that districts set out when an individual teacher may accept a site's terms.
• Keep a copy of any terms you accept. The same guidance suggests saving or printing the terms of service when you click to accept them.
• Move final grades over. Whatever you use day to day, put the marks that count into the official gradebook on your school's schedule.

4 Three ways to keep marks without names online

Paper

A paper gradebook sends nothing anywhere. It is still a record about students, so it lives in a drawer, not on the desk, and it goes home with you only if your school allows that. The gradebook page prints a blank landscape sheet with a name column and twenty-four rows across five weeks, two columns a week, to fill in by hand.

A file on a school computer

A spreadsheet saved on a district computer, in storage your district provides, stays inside the systems the district already manages. Keep it out of personal cloud folders and personal email, which your district has not reviewed. Lock the file with a password if your spreadsheet program allows it.

A tool that keeps names in your browser

Some web tools run entirely in your browser: the page loads from the internet, but what you type is kept in the browser's own storage on that computer and is never sent back to the site. That is how the Peabody gradebook works. The data is still on the computer, so it is only as private as the computer is: locked, not shared, and cleared when you are done on a shared machine. Check with your district before using one for marks, the same as you would for any other tool.

Whichever you choose, write as little as you need. First names or initials are enough for a working gradebook. Leave out student ID numbers, which schools use across many systems, along with birthdays, addresses and anything about health or services.

5 Using the Peabody gradebook

The free gradebook and data tracker on Peabody Teach was built so names and marks stay on the computer you type them on. Here is exactly what it does:

• Students and assignments. Add up to 40 students and 60 assignments, each with its points possible.
• Three views. Points, percent, or a 1 to 4 view that counts 90 and up as 4, 75 and up as 3, 60 and up as 2 and anything lower as 1. Use your school's own scale where it has one.
• Exit tickets. Mark each student's exit ticket today as got it, almost or not yet, and see each student's tally.
• Stays on this computer. Names and marks are kept in this browser's storage. They are never sent to Peabody, never put in a link, and never read by the site's page counts.
• A file you save. Save a file to your own computer to keep a copy or move it to another computer, then open it on that computer's gradebook page and choose to merge or replace.
• Clearing. A box clears everything when you close the tab, for a shared classroom computer, and a button clears it on the spot.

Two things it can't do for you. It can't stop someone who uses the same computer and browser after you from seeing what you left, so tick the clear box on any shared machine. And a saved file is an ordinary file: keep it where your district says student records may be kept, not in a personal folder or an email to yourself.

6 Habits for any gradebook

The tool matters less than the habits around it. These apply to paper, spreadsheets and browser tools alike.

• Lock the computer every time you step away, even for a minute.
• Close the gradebook before you turn on the projector, and check what is on the screen before you share it.
• Never show a list of names with scores, levels or behavior marks to the class.
• Use first names or initials in working records; leave ID numbers and birthdays out.
• On a shared computer, clear the gradebook and sign out when you finish.
• Keep saved files and printouts where your district says student records belong.
• Shred paper with marks on it instead of putting it in recycling.
• Don't paste marks or names into an artificial intelligence tool or website your district hasn't approved.
• Move final grades into the official gradebook on time.

If something does go wrong (a list emailed to the wrong person, a gradebook left on a projector, a laptop lost), tell your principal or technology coordinator the same day. The student data privacy guide has a chapter on what to do next.

7 Sharing marks with students and families

Privacy doesn't end at the gradebook. How marks reach students and families matters as much as where they are kept.

• Hand papers back face down, or in folders, so a score isn't seen by the whole row.
• Don't post marks by name on the wall or the board. Celebrate effort and progress for the class as a whole.
• Peer marking is a practice step. Students can check each other's work for practice, but collect and record the marks yourself, and don't have students call scores out loud.
• Talk to families through school channels. Use the school's email or messaging system, not a personal phone or account.
• Conferences show one student at a time. Print or open only that student's marks, not the class list.

Families sometimes ask how their child's data is handled. A short, honest answer helps: which systems hold the official grades, and that your own working notes stay on paper or on a school computer. If you use a browser-only tool, say what it does and doesn't do.

What to say"Your child's report card grades are in the district's system. For quick checks in class I keep notes on paper and on my school computer, and I never type students' names into websites."