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Calvert County Public Schools plans phased expansion of parent visibility in device monitoring app
Summary
District IT officials proposed rolling out school‑day visibility to parents in 2026 for the Custodial parent app, saying participation is optional and the app complies with FERPA, COPPA and CIPA; board members and parents urged careful training and clearer support channels.
Superintendent's technology leaders told the Calvert County Board of Education they plan to expand parent access to the district's Custodial parent app to include school‑day visibility in a phased rollout in 2026.
"We currently have just over 700 CCPS students connected to parent accounts," said Matt Poteet, director of information technology, adding that the district uses device‑level filtering (LineWise) and an instructional tool (ClassWise) to support teachers while protecting privacy. Poteet said participation in the parent app is optional and that the vendor and district have designed the system to comply with FERPA, COPPA and CIPA.
Why it matters: parents seeking greater insight into their children's online activity have pushed the district to expand visibility beyond after‑school logs. Board members and parents said that if the district opens school‑day visibility, it must provide clear guidance so logs are not misread and so teachers are not inundated with inquiries.
During the presentation, Poteet and TJ Hill, supervisor of instructional technology, explained that LineWise operates at the device level and that ClassWise gives teachers an instructional view of class activity while parent views present activity logs. The presenters said logs can be misinterpreted — an entry for youtube.com at 08:22 a.m., for example, could reflect an assignment — and emphasized the need for teacher and parent education before wider rollout.
Board member Melissa Goshorn, who said she uses the app with her own child's devices, urged accelerating the timeline but also using current users (about 705 students' parents) as an early test group to surface common questions. "Some of the logs aren't right, especially the time log," she said, recounting a reported late‑night timestamp that actually reflected earlier daytime activity.
District staff said a true pilot by school or grade would be difficult because the vendor's setting is district‑wide, but they proposed a phased, supported rollout that focuses on staff training and parent education. They also said families can request deletion of data at any time and that custodial support is available for technical questions.
The presentation prompted questions about who parents should contact for technical problems, how teacher workload will be managed, and how the district will surface feedback from teachers once school‑day visibility is active. Officials said they will post FAQs and provide contact information, and that training for both staff and parents is a key part of the implementation plan.
Next steps: the district will continue internal readiness work through 2025, increase parent education and sample reporting materials, and aim to begin school‑day visibility in 2026 with elevated vendor and district support. No formal board action was taken.
