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Parents, teachers and students press APS to pause Amira voice-recording assessment and delete data
Summary
Dozens of public commenters at the Aug. 5 Albuquerque Public Schools board meeting urged the district to pause use of the Amira (Emera) reading tool, offer opt-outs, and delete existing voice recordings, citing privacy, equity and accuracy concerns; the superintendent said APS is coordinating with the state and that PED guidance indicates recordings will be deleted every 30 days.
At the Aug. 5 Albuquerque Public Schools Board of Education meeting, a steady stream of parents, teachers and students told trustees they want the district to stop recording young children with the Amira (branded Emera in some materials) reading tool, offer clear opt-outs and delete existing recordings.
"I just don't want his voice recorded and stored somewhere for somebody to hack and use," said one parent during public forum, pressing the board for a districtwide opt-out option. Multiple speakers, including educators and attorneys, said the program misidentifies students with accents or speech differences and can induce anxiety. Cassie Fleming, an attorney at New Mexico Legal Aid, told the board "Amira is deeply flawed, and it's a junk product," and urged APS to adopt secure alternatives such as DIBELS.
Speakers described similar problems across grade levels: teachers said the tool fails to register soft-spoken students or those with different dialects, parents said children came home upset, and advocates presented a petition backed by 610 constituents demanding alternatives and deletion of data. Christopher Locke, a parent, argued a child's voiceprint is personal information and asked the board to "pause any and all recording, use a nonrecording screener, make it strictly opt-in ... and have the recordings already taken deleted." Several commenters pointed to Santa Fe and Los Alamos school districts that had paused similar tools while reviews were conducted.
Superintendent Duran Blakey acknowledged the concerns, described the district's work with the New Mexico Public Education Department and the teachers union, and said APS is establishing an early-literacy assessment task force. The superintendent told trustees "PED has assured us that voice recordings will be deleted every 30 days," and said the district will provide families with guidance about assessments and privacy resources.
The meeting record shows robust public pressure for immediate changes — including deletion of existing recordings and a formal opt-out — while district leaders signaled a review process with the state and the union. The task force and any policy changes were described as next steps; no board-level moratorium or deletion order was announced at the meeting.
