Marianna Mom Ali Wiggins: Speaks about Hurricane Michael, isolation & recovery

For many survivors of Hurricane Michael Facebook is the only place to reach out in hopes of being heard. It was Ali Wiggins post about life after Michael that really resonated with me.

Many affected counties like Jackson and Calhoun are difficult to reach rural, farming communities.  Children from at least eight counties — Washington, Liberty, Jackson, Gulf, Gadsden, Franklin, Calhoun and Bay aren’t returning to school any time soon. In a direct message, Ali said to me, “We all feel isolated here. And we all know help is coming, but we never knew how long it would take. We never knew what our “help” would have to go through just to get to us. Heartbreaking.”

Ali’s voice and words are powerful, please read:

Ali Wiggins, October 25, 2018, Hurricane Michael survivor, Marianna, Florida. Printed with author’s permission.

If you are tired of seeing Hurricane Michael posts, maybe you should unfollow me. And this post will be longer than most so move along if you need to. This is pretty much the only sure fire way we can communicate with folks.

If you think a little rain and some wind rolled through here, you’re wrong. If you think since folks are getting their power turned back on everything’s fine now, you’re wrong. If you’ve seen some pictures and think you know what it feels like to live it cause you’ve seen a hurricane before, you’re wrong. 45 minutes either east or west of us is probably close to being normal again.

If I hear one more person say, “Yea, I’ve seen a few hurricanes. “So and so” hurricane was bad.” Well this wasn’t just a hurricane. It was the third strongest hurricane to hit the US in modern history. And I don’t care what hurricane you’ve seen, you ain’t seen bad! If you were alive in 1935 and saw the “Labor Day” hurricane hit the FL Keys, or in Mississippi in 1969 to see Camille, then we’ll talk. If not, you have no clue.

If you are seeing the news about Panama City and Mexico Beach, we are close to the same. The storm never really slowed down much or weakened when it left them. It hit us full force and we are 60 or so miles inland. Jackson and Calhoun counties were hit just as hard. Folks are living with generators, ridiculously made slow-pour BS gas cans, sometimes rationed gasoline if you can find a place that sells it. Curfews. Only two times of day: daylight and dark. Living in tents, their cars, friends houses, hotels.

You don’t go to the store, you get in line at the PODs. We have long lines for water, MREs, tarps, bugspray, and baby diapers. You could be the wealthiest guy around and it wouldn’t matter. There are very few places to spend it. It’s cash only purchases, no fast food, no ATMs. The stores that are open are only open from sun up to sun down. So you can forget picking up a gallon of milk on your way home. Winn Dixie closes at 5 now. And Walmart probably not long after that.

We have no idea what’s going on outside of this bubble because we have no internet, no phones, no cell service, no tv. We live with our windows wide open and no air conditioning. We have looters and scammers. We have people from all over the nation here, most of them to help us. But how do you know for sure? Some just walk up behind you in your own yard while you’re hanging your laundry on the clothesline and scare the crap out of you just asking if you need help with a downed tree.

Fella snuck right up behind me. He should’ve hollered from his truck. NOT COOL! You can’t tell who belongs in your neighborhood or not. You carry a pistol with you at all times just in case you guessed wrong on whether they are a good guy or a bad guy. Now it’s time for bed, the whole family piles up in one room with air mattresses, fans, open windows and our firearms in case someone decides they need your generator or gas cans or food more than you do.

You can’t sleep because you hear every single noise outside. You hear every siren and you cringe with each one. Flashlights in the dark? It could be a lineman or a boogie man, you don’t know! You go a week and then realize you haven’t seen nor heard one bird because there are no trees left. All the trees are on the ground, and I mean ALL of them, and all the creatures that lived in them are now everywhere. Yellow jackets and mosquitoes that look like they’re from Jurassic Park. The sounds of chainsaws, diesel trucks, helicopters, sirens, and generators constantly.

The death toll continues to rise. Houses are burning down as some folks get power and all the history that they’ve held are now gone with them. Debris piles are taller than the homes they sit in front of. One lane roads and downed power lines everywhere. AND THIS IS DAY 15!!

The depression this brings is real. No one here is dreaming this up. You couldn’t even if you tried! And if you think you could handle all this and go right on like nothing happened, you are welcome to set up camp here in Jackson County, Florida. I’ll give you my spot. I would love to see how you fair. Every where else in the world seems to be business as usual. Not here!

We are all now using the phrase, “new normal”. I hate it! I liked my old normal (as crazy as it was) just fine!!! I’ve cried. I’ve thrown shit. I’ve screamed. And I’ve cried some more. My heart hurts for so many people right now. And I am no where near what some people have experienced. They’ve lost it all. We still have our family and our home. A little damaged but still intact. So many don’t.

This wasn’t just a hurricane. This destroyed the lives of thousands of people. We post a dozen or more things a day to help folks find what they are looking for, whether it be a place to wash clothes, a hot meal to fill their bellies, or 5T clothes for their little boy or girl.

We post what we are living. This is all we can think about. This last 15 days have been awful. And if you can pick right up and get back to it already, then good for you. I’m having a little trouble with that right now. It still looks like a war zone here. Things won’t ever be the same again. I’ve tried so hard to be positive for the last two weeks. Now on day 15, I’m tired. My muscles ache from cutting trees and hauling fence. I wasn’t cut out for this. I’ve got poison ivy and ant bites. I’m pissed and I wish this was all just a bad dream. And I really, really miss Netflix.

Whew! Glad I got that out. I feel better now. Goodnight from JACO. Now y’all can go on about ya business.

How to help Florida Panhandle victims.

How to help Florida Panhandle victims.

Student data mining: Parents deserve right to refuse

Unfortunately, states and school districts are embracing student digital badges, programs like i-Ready, adaptive computer-based education and other Ed-Tech products in exchange for money and/or one-on-one devices. The growing focus on data mining our children’s personal information, sentiments, social/emotional information, even  creating “predictive” profiles,  is something parents deserve the right to refuse for their student.

In Consider Yourself Warned, Deb Herbage explores K-12 data mining and the grave threat it poses to student privacy. Re-blogged with permission:

If you were walking down the street and a stranger stopped you and asked you to hand over your driver’s license and social security card….would you?  Of course, you wouldn’t!  Those two items contain extremely personal information – YOUR personal information.  Your driver’s license has your full name, your picture, your birth date, a unique number (in some state’s it could be your social security number), your address, your height and weight, any restrictions for driving a vehicle and even your eye color.  How about if you put your wallet down for a few seconds and a stranger snatched it, essentially stealing your information.  Wouldn’t that make you feel violated?  You would have to start the whole process of canceling your credit cards, getting a new driver’s license and possibly putting a hold on your credit.  How about if that same stranger who asked you to hand over your driver’s license and social security card in the street told you they wanted your information so they could sell it to the highest bidder.  Wouldn’t you be outraged?  Then WHY are you allowing it to happen to your child(ren)?

Schools across the country have been and continue to set up accounts for our children with a multitude of Edtech vendors.  Schools are allowed to do this under COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act – set up in 1998), however, they are not informing parents and they are not seeking parental permission to do so – especially for minor children under the age of 13.  Parents are completely unaware this is happening.  In most cases, schools are instructing kids to click “I Agree” when they set these accounts up, bypassing parental permission and essentially allowing these Edtech companies to collect and mine massive amounts of data from our kids.  Data they do not have permission to take from parents but do from schools.   Please know, this data is not restricted to when your child is using the application/software/program at school……when kids come home from school and log in to complete homework assignments or study…..the data is flowing from your home computer/iPad/device to the Edtech company.  Your IP address is considered personal information because it is specific to you – that is just one of the over 50,000 data points being collected by the Edtech companies.  Under the new GDPR – that would be a fineable offense.  The data being collected is not being protected.  Here is an article from 2012 detailing the worst offenders of privacy violations – Privacy Hall of Shame – Microsoft, Google, and Facebook – who all own Edtech companies and push for data collection:  https://www.networkworld.com/article/2185187/security/15-worst-internet-privacy-scandals-of-all-time.html

I looked into just one of the Edtech companies my daughter’s school chose to use and set up accounts with on her behalf, without my permission or even acknowledgment, and I was horrified at what I read.  Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH).  There are many more she is being forced to use where accounts were set up for her.  I read the privacy policy for HMH and this is what I learned about the school setting up my daughter’s account without my permission from HMH’s privacy policy. They state that I consented to:

• I consent to having private information collected and stored which will be shared with third party vendors and “others”.
• I consent to HMH using and sharing our information and data and “other activities”.
• I consent to them using our and my daughter’s personal information, demographic information and usage information for a “variety of purposes”.
• I consent to tracking technologies that collect and store information for a “variety of purposes” whether my daughter is at home or at school.
• I consent to their tracking technologies which include, without limitation, these methods: cookies, web beacons, embedded scripts and entity tags which they will, from time to time, supplement with information they collect directly from my daughter with outside records from third parties.
• I consent to them collecting personal, demographic, and usage information from my daughter for internal business purposes such as troubleshooting, data analysis, testing and service improvement.
• I consent to them using, sharing and disclosing my and my daughter’s name, voice, likeness and other personal information that is part of the “user content” for advertising, marketing, publicity and promotional items.
• Finally, giving my consent, they can and will give my information and my daughter’s information to third parties such as network advertisers and ad exchanges such as “Behavioral Ads” and “Contextual Ads”.

I did not consent to any of that.  I was not made aware that the school or school district set that account up for my daughter.  I found out by watching her log in on her personal laptop at home to complete homework.

When I confronted my school district via an email….I was told by the IT manager that it is MY responsibility to reach out to HMH with my concerns.  It is MY responsibility to contact HMH if there are any data breaches.  The data being collected is not limited to demographic information.  The data (education records) being collected has continuously expanded since 2014 to include SEL (Social Emotional Learning) skills which include the student’s values, beliefs, “grit” and attitudes.  How is this data collected?  Through algorithms.  Algorithms that lack transparency that are created to obtain specific information.  Algorithms that a lot of times are inaccurate.  You can read about this in this extremely well-documented article by Cheri Kiesecker.  http://missourieducationwatchdog.com/are-schools-allowing-edtech-software-to-map-every-online-click/

This information and data, which are considered “education records” are being collected and sold to the highest bidder.  https://nepc.colorado.edu/newsletter/2017/08/sold-highest-bidder

Some responsible school districts are offering Opt-In forms to parents.  These school districts are seeking parental permission for their child to participate in and use Edtech software/applications/programs. Here is an example of a responsible school district Opt-In form: http://www.swasd.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Coppa-Combined-Forns-2017-18.pdf

Parents, I cannot urge you strongly enough to look into what Edtech companies your child is using and read their privacy policies.  Look into what your school district has consented YOU to and what accounts have been set up for your child.  Many of these companies’ programs/software/applications are experimental.  Pearson, one of the education titans, was found to be embedding “social-psychological” experimental software in student’s educational and learning software.  https://gizmodo.com/pearson-embedded-a-social-psychological-experiment-in-s-1825367784   Many of the applications our children are using fail to protect their data. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/07/27/we-tested-apps-for-children-half-failed-to-protect-their-data/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.c64b9167b1a6

Thousands of Edtech applications/programs/software are improperly and illegally tracking children.  Another well researched and well-documented article by Cheri.  http://missourieducationwatchdog.com/bombshell-study-thousands-of-educational-apps-are-improperly-tracking-children/

Tech “titans” are unrestricted, unregulated and profit off the backs of many unsuspecting parents and children.   It is a datapalooza free-for-all at the expense of our children.  You may not see any repercussions now…..but I can assure you – you will at some point in your child’s life.

If you feel violated after knowing someone stole your wallet containing your personal information or you experienced a data breach with your medical records, why are you allowing Edtech companies to violate your children?  Why are you allowing schools and school districts to set up accounts for your children without your permission or consent?  Why are you allowing your minor child(ren) to be continuously data mined?

How do we stop the data mining?  By not collecting it in the first place.  By being vigilant and protecting our children.

Consider yourself warned.