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I have a friend in a high school computer science course in Texas. This is a course required for graduation and is not a volunteer thing. Apparently, the teacher is having the students develop an official app that the school intends to eventually use. This app deals with collecting and maintaining personal information about students in this particular school, as well as information about what classes they are enrolled in. They are not paying the students to do this. My friend says his entire course grade will be based on this app.

I'm an industry professional programmer, and this sounds extremely illegal to me, for a number of reasons, the first being that inexperienced programmers (kids) are not only being given access to protected information about minors (and thus is extremely likely to be exploitable/leakable), but also that they are being asked to work for the school without pay via threat of not graduating.

I looked briefly at the Texas child labor laws but they only seem to cover willful paid employment, which this is clearly not.

Is this legal?

Mary
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ShardFenix
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  • As edited, i do not think this is a request for specific legal advice, nor should it be closed on that basis. – David Siegel Feb 09 '23 at 20:27
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    Are the students developing the app collectively? If so, will they all pass the course or all fail the course? Do Texas high schools have any course curriculum requirements? Doesn't the school already operate a professionally produced, and managed, student and course database? – Weather Vane Feb 09 '23 at 20:32
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    Have you brought this up with the local school board? – BlueDogRanch Feb 09 '23 at 20:40
  • I don't live in his state, so I've not contacted the school board. All of the students in his class will pass or fail together is my understanding. Those are all the details he's told me about it as of now. The way he described it, it sounded like this is something they would allow other students to track their classes or grades or assignments, and that the school admin has their own database for this already (with the data this app will access). – ShardFenix Feb 09 '23 at 20:53
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    That's a rare thing: your course mark will depend on the other students :) – Weather Vane Feb 09 '23 at 21:08
  • @ShardFenix I'd be very sure your student friend is accurately telling you the whole story re: course grade and passing the class. – BlueDogRanch Feb 09 '23 at 21:20
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    He is. He actually is fine with doing it because he wants to put it on his resume. For me the bigger issue is that they're getting inexperienced students to develop an official app/website that will access protected data about minors. His class doesn't know anything about data security or how to do authentication/authorization properly. I learned about this because he was asking me these kinds of technical questions, which also implies that the teacher is very hands-off. – ShardFenix Feb 09 '23 at 21:34
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    Teachers always have students work on projects. Sometimes in groups,, sometimes alone. It's a Good Thing. – RonJohn Feb 10 '23 at 06:09
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    "For me the bigger issue is that they're getting inexperienced students to develop an official app/website that will access protected data about minors. His class doesn't know anything about data security or how to do authentication/authorization properly." Nowhere is that mentioned in your question. – RonJohn Feb 10 '23 at 06:11
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    @RonJohn Although serious, that's not entirely a legal issue. Of course, if the data is leaked, then it becomes a legal issue. Right now, it isn't. Maybe the teacher is a former security expert and will be responsible for hardening the server. – Nelson Feb 10 '23 at 08:48
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    Having seen such projects during my own studies, typically the use-case is there just for motivation and context. The result will rarely be more than a prototype level quality, and if the teacher is competent, will just handle dummy example data. So I think you or your friend is making more of this than it actually is. – jpa Feb 10 '23 at 08:51
  • @jpa Then, the teacher should take care that students can see it is not a real app. – user253751 Feb 10 '23 at 15:28
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    @RonJohn Working as a group in a class is not the same as having the ability to pass the class depend on that group. Not to mention this sounds like this is for the entire class as a whole. I can say for a fact that even at the college level there are individuals who can cause the entire group to fail and that would be very bad at the high school level. – Joe W Feb 10 '23 at 18:12
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    I am finding this scenario simply unbelievable. A teacher might phrase the project as "Develop an app that the school would use to schedule student's classes"- this does not mean they ever would. Technology at (public?) schools moves incredibly slowly- nobody is letting students- even at the college level- develop production apps to be used internally. I frankly don't believe this would ever happen. – rob Feb 10 '23 at 18:31
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    @Nelson the teacher might be incompetent enough to give them live data. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised. *That* is the only worry which I see in OP's question. And that can quickly be resolved by having the student ask the teacher. – RonJohn Feb 10 '23 at 19:26
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    Just re-joined the site. While this isn't for clarification, etc., I want to leave a suggestion for dealing with this: First the parents should speak to the school about this. *Then after they have, if* the school really is doing something dark here, you may wish to contact the media. *If* it really is dark and you contact the media, be sure to contact multiple groups. And in my personal experience, don't expect much to be done about such things in a rural area, unless you embarrass them in the media and/or use the state government, but YMMV. But 1st: They should talk to the school. – Panzercrisis Feb 10 '23 at 20:01

2 Answers2

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Various elements could be legal, or not. For example, it is legal to require students to do things in order to pass a class. It is legal to require a student to write a program for a course (entirely, or in part). It is legal for a teacher to give a "group grade".

It is not clear whether it is legal to require the student to assign copyright or license to the teacher / school – it may be legal to require a student to pay for their class, and copyright transfer might be valuable consideration for such a contract (assuming that there is a contractual relation at all as opposed to a statutory mandate – e.g. "high school"). If this is a public school, you can't make students pay for a mandatory class, therefore you cannot require assignment of copyright. It is very probably illegal for the student to access the educational records of other students, but the app could be developed with dummy data.

user6726
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  • I don't understand your point about payment and copyright transfer and consideration. To have the compensation make sense, wouldn't it have to either be the students receiving the copyright, or the school or teacher paying the students? – Solomon Ucko Feb 10 '23 at 05:36
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    @SolomonUcko: The software has value and would be owned by the author, except the school is requiring them to transfer ownership of it to the school. (Where I'm using "ownership" loosely, but copyright on software is something they could hypothetically sell to someone else instead of giving it to the school). The question doesn't say anything about assigning their copyright to the school or license it for free to the school, but one or the other would be necessary for the school to actually use the software, I think. – Peter Cordes Feb 10 '23 at 05:52
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    "the app could be developed with dummy data." Well, it should be developed with dummy data... – RonJohn Feb 10 '23 at 06:12
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    @SolomonUcko "To have the compensation make sense, wouldn't it have to either be the students receiving the copyright". Absent a lawful assignment of copyright, students/programmers are the copyright owners by default, i.e., from the moment of creation. One cannot be compensated with something he owns in the first place. – Iñaki Viggers Feb 10 '23 at 10:49
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    Oh, I misunderstood what you're saying. I interpreted it as being about paying for the copyright, but I've now figured out to interpret it as being about using the copyright as a form of payment for the class. – Solomon Ucko Feb 10 '23 at 11:53
  • Personally I would be surprised if the school could not (or is not already) forcing either copyright assignment or automatic licensing. When I was at university (in the UK) that was definitely a condition of my tuition. I'm not sure that it would be considered payment for a class (I suspect such clauses predate tuition fees in this country), despite the fact it could (in theory) be sold. Not to mention that the copyright for such a group project would be immensely difficult to co-ordinate. – preferred_anon Feb 10 '23 at 12:59
  • @preferred_anon: It's unlawful here to require copyright assignment. Turnitin was ripped to shreds a few years ago. – Joshua Feb 10 '23 at 17:53
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    @preferred_anon: In the US, a "public school" is a government-run school, which is required to provide free education to everyone living in a given area (a "school district"). It has a completely different meaning to the UK's "public school." They cannot charge tuition, and for the most part, cannot set qualifications or terms (but see also "magnet schools" in some states), because they are a government service offered to everyone in a given age range. – Kevin Feb 10 '23 at 20:06
  • @RonJohn The app must be developed with dummy data. Handing out real student data would be a flagrant violation of FERPA. – A. R. Feb 10 '23 at 20:30
  • My opinion is that the school has no right to use the software without the student's permission, and it can't force their permission. They would have to have the students or their parents sign something for copyright transfer. Imagine a sewing class where the students have to create uniforms for the staff. Or an art class where the students have to create art that the school then sells, or even uses for their own decoration in the principal's office without consulting the students. Or an English teacher that publishes a book of her students' essays and keeps the money. – Jason Goemaat Feb 10 '23 at 20:35
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    @JasonGoemaat While HomEc and such are not popular anymore, creating baked goods for fundraisers was fairly common. At least in the elementary school system I went to, displaying student art work was also fairly common. The last example is very different in kind -- I don't think there is any argument that an employee cannot claim copyright, the question is if the school can claim it. I am not a lawyer, so I am not going to turn this into a full answer, but some quick searching shows this issue has come up before in the context of commercially viable student photography. And is a grey area. – Chuu Feb 10 '23 at 21:50
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    @AndrewRay it's... supposed to be developed with dummy data. Of course, making meaningful quantities of dummy data is hard. – RonJohn Feb 10 '23 at 22:31
  • @Kevin Sure, that's what I'm getting at. University in the UK is public in your sense (or at least used to be). In fact, I found a very clear source from the UK government that suggests such a practice would be legal here, in spite of the school receiving government funding. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/ownership-of-copyright-works#works-created-by-students

    My original comment merely said I would be surprised - so I guess I am :-)

     – preferred_anon Feb 11 '23 at 16:29
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    @preferred_anon: High school is not university. Attendance is compulsory for under-16s (usually, the exact cutoff may vary by state), which is a significant portion of the student body. You cannot put conditions on attendance and then legally mandate it. – Kevin Feb 12 '23 at 01:19
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No.

"Forced Labor" is typically a term used to refer to countries that have prison or internment camps where there is no choice in doing the work and trying to choose not to means starvation and beatings.

Where as "paid employment" is a term that can then be compared to "unpaid employment" and in a school setting as "education".

You may wish to study North Korea and China to gain more insight into these practices.

Michael Durrant
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