Last Updated: [January 8, 2025]
TeachTown understands that you care about your information and how it is used and shared. This Privacy Notice (“Privacy Notice”) applies to the online services, mobile services, website and software (collectively, the “Service”) of Jigsaw Learning, LLC, dba TeachTown (“TeachTown,” “we,” “our,” or “us”). This Privacy Notice describes how we collect, use and disclose your personal information when you use our Service or otherwise engage with us.
Our Service is intended to be used for educational purposes by school districts, school boards and individual schools within a district (collectively “Educational Institutions”); individual teachers, interventionists, specialists, data analysts, authorized school administrators, qualified clinicians, and other educators (collectively “Educators”); students (“Students”); and, in some cases, their parents or legal guardians (collectively “Parents”). TeachTown processes two distinct categories of personal information, Student Data (data about Students) and Consumer Data (data about Parents, Educators and individuals visiting our public-facing website, web.Teachtown.com), with specific privacy and security controls for each category.
When TeachTown provides our Service to Educational Institutions, Educators or Parents, we collect personal information that is directly related to an identifiable Student. This Privacy Notice refers to that type of information as “Student Data.” We consider Student Data to be confidential and do not use Student Data for any purpose other than to provide the Service on behalf of the Educational Institution, Educator or Parent and in accordance with any contractual agreements between TeachTown and the Educational Institution, Educator or Parent.
Directly from the Owners: We collect Student Data directly from a Parent, an Educator or Educational Institution (the “Owners” of Student Data). Student Data may include “educational records” as defined by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (“FERPA”), 20 U.S.C. § 1232(g).
Third-Party Sites: We may receive Student Data from third-party platforms, networks, services and/or sites that Educational Institutions connect with our Service. For example, if your Educational Institution registers through or otherwise grants access to a service such as ClassLink or OneRoster, we may receive Student Data from that service. This information may include, for example, Student courses, Student rosters, and Student submissions. The information we receive from these third parties depends on the third-party site’s policies and the privacy settings chosen by the Educational Institution. You should always review and, if necessary, adjust your privacy settings on third-party websites and services before linking or connecting them to our Service.
Directly from the Student: We automatically collect usage information when a Student accesses our Service, such as pages visited, time on page and device information such as IP address, browser type and other device-related information. We also collect information that students and teachers voluntarily provide such as Student submissions and teacher assessments of Student progress.
We consider Student Data to be confidential and do not use Student Data for any purpose other than to provide the Service on the Owner’s behalf, in accordance with any contractual agreements with the Owner.
We do not build a personal profile of a Student other than what a Parent or Educator may record for educational purposes.
We do not use or disclose Student Data for any advertising purposes; however, we may collect and use analytics data using third-party analytics tools such as Google Analytics to help us measure traffic and usage trends for the Service.
We may use Student Data to protect the security and integrity of our business, comply with laws, regulations, court orders, or other legal obligations, to enforce our rights or applicable contract and agreements, to detect, investigate and prevent fraud or unlawful or criminal activity.
We will never sell Student Data unless the sale is part of a corporate transaction, such as a merger, acquisition, bankruptcy, or other sale of assets, in which case we will require the new owner to continue to honor the terms provided in this Privacy Notice or we will provide the Educational Institution with notice and an opportunity to opt-out of the transfer of Student Data by deleting the Student Data before the transfer occurs.
We may generate de-Identified information from Student Data, which cannot be tied to or associated with a specific Student. We may use the de-identified Information for development, research, and improvement of our Service, including the development and improvement of our models and algorithms. We may also use de-Identified Student Data to recommend content or services to Educational Institutions.
We will not make any material changes to our use of Student Data without first giving notice to data Owners and providing a choice before the Student Data are used in a materially different manner than was disclosed in this Privacy Notice when the information was collected.
We disclose Student Data solely as needed to provide the Service or at the request of a data Owner (Educational Institutions, Educators or Parents).
Owners: These are entities that have contracted our services and may be Educational Institutions, Educators or Parents (when a Parent purchases our services). Owners have access to view, update and create reports of their respective Student Data. They may also request deletion of the Student Data. Student Data and Educator account usage data may be disclosed to or accessed by school administrators authorized by the Educational Institution.
Service Providers: We do not disclose Student Data to our service providers, however; we share data with a service provider that hosts our data platforms. Our service providers only access such information on our request and are subject to contractual obligations to protect such data.
Special Circumstances: We may also disclose Student Data in connection with a business transaction or merger, or to support our legal rights and obligations.
Data Owners may request deletion of Student Data at any time. We normally retain Student Data for a period of two years after termination of the contract with the data Owner to continue to provide the Owner access to its records and aggregate reports, after which the Student Data will be deleted and/or de-identified, unless the data Owner requests deletion prior to that date. We may retain the Student Data for a longer period if required by law.
Please note: Educational Institutions are the data controllers for Student Data and responsible for maintaining current class rosters and submitting deletion requests to remove Student Data they no longer need.
Questions about Student Data: If you have questions about specific practices relating to Student Data provided to TeachTown by an Educational Institution, please direct your questions to your Educational Institution. Individual account Owners (Parents or Educators) may direct questions about Student Data to privacy@teachtown.com.
When we provide our Service to an Educational Institution, Educator or directly to a Parent or when an individual visits our public website (web.TeachTown.com), we collect personal information about them. Our Privacy Notice refers to this category of information as “Consumer Data”.
We collect Consumer Data (non-student personal information) from your Educational Institution, directly from you when you register with our Service, automatically when you interact with our Service, and sometimes from third parties.
Directly from Consumers
We collect the following information you provide in connection with our Service:
Information We Automatically Collect
Like most digital platforms, we collect certain personal information automatically when you visit and use our Service, including:
Information from Other Sources
We also obtain Consumer personal information from other sources such as social media platforms, service providers or from other individuals, which we may combine with personal information we collect automatically or directly from you.
We use your information for the purposes described in this Privacy Notice or as otherwise disclosed to you on our Service or in connection with our Service. Please Note: The uses below apply only to Consumer Data, for information on the limited purposes for which we use Student Data, please see “Student Data” above.
We use Consumer personal information for the following purposes:
| Categories of Consumer Personal Information | Purposes of Use |
| Identifiers, contact and account information; Educational Institution information; Commercial payment and transaction information; Internet usage and device information; Comments, messages, and opinions | Operate Our Business: We may use your information to process and complete your orders, requests, or transactions, or respond to your customer service requests or feedback and to operate our learning Service. We may also use your information to personalize your experience with us. |
| Identifiers, contact and account information; Educational Institution information; Commercial payment and transaction information; Comments, messages, and opinions | Communicating directly with you: We may use your information to respond to your questions or comments and to evaluate and communicate with you about your account activities by providing transaction confirmations and alerts. We may send you Service-related emails or messages (e.g., user account verification, change or updates to features of the Service, technical and security notices). |
| Identifiers, contact and account information; internet, usage, and device information; | Marketing and Advertising; We and our third-party partners may use Consumer Data for advertising purposes and send you periodic promotional or informational communications about new features, updates, products, and exclusive offers. We may also use your information to serve you ads about products and exclusive offers about products or services we think you might find interesting. For more information on your choices about marketing communications, see “Your Choices and Control Over Your Information” below. |
| De-Identified and Pseudonymized Information | Product Improvement, Development and Research: We may de-identify your personal information to generate aggregated or otherwise anonymized data (“De-Identified Information”). We use De-Identified Information for the purposes of development, research, and improvement of our Service and for the development and improvement of our models and algorithms. In addition, we may use De-Identified Information for the development and improvement of other educational sites, services and applications or technologies to the extent permitted under applicable law. We may also display aggregate summaries of De-Identified Information publicly or to our customers, such as analytics or reports at the district or school level. |
| Potentially all categories of personal information we collect | Security, Compliance with Legal Obligations, or as Otherwise Permitted by Law: We may use information to protect the security and integrity of our business. We may also use information to comply with laws, regulations, court orders, or other legal obligations, to enforce our rights or applicable contracts and agreements, to detect, investigate and prevent fraud or unlawful or criminal activity, or for any other reason permitted by law. |
Third-Party Tracking and Online Advertising
Please note: As indicated above, we do not disclose or use Student Data for any advertising or marketing purposes.
We participate in interest-based advertising and use third-party advertising companies to serve Consumers targeted advertisements based on your online browsing history and your interests. We permit third-party online advertising networks, social media companies, and other third-party services to collect information about your use of our Service over time so that they may display ads on our Service, on other websites, apps, or services you may use, and on other devices you may use. Typically, though not always, the information used for interest-based advertising is collected through cookies or similar tracking technologies. We may share a common account identifier (such as an email address or user ID) or hashed data with our third-party advertising partners to help identify you across devices. We and our third-party partners use this information to make the advertisements you see online more relevant to your interests, as well as to provide advertising-related services such as reporting, attribution, analytics, and market research.
To learn more about interest-based advertising and how you may be able to opt out of this advertising, you may wish to visit the Network Advertising Initiative’s online resources, at http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices, and/or the DAA’s resources at www.aboutads.info/choices. Please note that some advertising opt outs may not be effective unless your browser is set to accept cookies. Furthermore, if you use a different device, change browsers, or delete the opt-out cookies, you may need to perform the opt-out task again.
Please note that opting out of Tracking Technologies may negatively impact your experience using the Service, as some features and services on our Service may not work properly. Depending on your mobile device and operating system, you may not be able to delete or block all Tracking Technologies. You may also set your email options to prevent the automatic downloading of images that may contain technologies that would allow us to know whether you have accessed your email and performed certain functions with it. For more information about Tracking Technologies, please see “Third-Party Tracking and Online Advertising” below.
We disclose Consumer Data for various business purposes in the ways described below. For more information on how we disclose Student Data, please see the section on “Student Data” above.
CCPA and other similar state laws define the “selling” and “sharing” of personal information in very broad terms and considers targeted marketing to be “selling” or “sharing”. TeachTown may use targeted marketing to grow our business, but we do not “sell” or “share” any other types of personal information. In addition, TeachTown does not disclose sensitive personal information.
To exercise your privacy rights for information we process outside of a contractual relationship with an Educational Institution, send us a request via the contact methods described in ‘How to Contact Us’ at the bottom of this notice. We may not be able to modify or delete your information in all circumstances.
If you are a resident of California or a U.S. state with similar laws, you have certain rights related to the personal information we hold about you.
To exercise your right to access, delete, rectify or limit the use of your personal information, send us a request via the contact methods described in ‘How to Contact Us’ at the bottom of this notice including the type of request, your first and last name, your state of residence and the email address(es) related to the request.
To exercise your right to opt-out of “selling or sharing”, please click on the link in the footer of this website.
If you or an agent authorized by you submit a request to exercise your rights, we may decline the request in certain cases. For example:
If we deny your request to exercise your privacy rights, you may appeal that decision using the contact methods listed at the end of this Notice.
TeachTown collects and uses Student Data at the direction of and under the control of a School or Parent. As such, we rely on each Educational Institution to provide appropriate notice to Parents of the Educational Institution’s use of third-party service providers such as TeachTown. A Parent who directly creates an account to access our Service on behalf of a specific Student is provided notice and grants consent in the online registration process. In addition, we rely on Educational Institutions, Educators and Parents to obtain and provide appropriate consent and disclosures, if necessary, as permitted under applicable laws. TeachTown does not “share” or “sell” the personal information of children under 16 years of age and only collects personally identifiable information from children under 16 with the prior consent of a Parent or Educational Institution and only for educational purposes.
We employ physical, technical, and administrative security measures to safeguard your information including, but not limited to, data encryption, firewalls, access controls and periodic audits of our security systems and practices. Our privacy and security programs and documentation are designed to align with the NIST Privacy and Security Frameworks, and we work to ensure all TeachTown employees and contractors are well trained in our privacy and security policies and practices. We have successfully completed the System and Organization Controls (SOC) 2 security audit process and will continue an annual SOC 2 compliance audit to mitigate risk and establish customer trust and reassurance.
Our Service may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins, and applications. Except where we post, link to, or expressly adopt or refer to this Privacy Notice, this Privacy Notice does not apply to, and we are not responsible for, any personal information practices of third parties. To learn about the personal information practices of third parties, please visit their respective privacy notices.
If you would like to exercise your privacy rights, please send an email to privacy@teachtown.com and include; the type of request, your first and last name, your state of residence and the email address(es) related to the request. You may also submit your request by postal mail to the address listed below. To opt-out of sharing your personal information for targeted advertising purposes, click this link “Do Not Sell or Share My Information”.
If you have any questions or requests in connection with this Privacy Notice or other privacy-related matters, please send an email to privacy@teachtown.com. Additionally, TeachTown can be reached by mail at 2 Constitution Way, Woburn, MA 01801.
We will update this Privacy Notice at least annually. When we make changes to this Privacy Notice, we will change the “Last Updated” date at the beginning of this Privacy Notice. If we make material changes to this Privacy Notice, we will display a prominent notification on this website or our online services, or through other appropriate communication channels. All changes shall be effective from the date of publication unless otherwise provided.