Lakeland School District Opts out of Race to the Top

The Lakeland Central School District has officially opted out of the state's multi-million dollar Race to the Top project because of privacy concerns.

School board officials voted unanimously during their Nov. 21 meeting to opt out for two reasons," Lakeland Superintendent of Schools Dr. George Stone told Patch.

"We are opposed to the use of the proposed 'data dashboards' and how student information will potentially be shared with third party vendors, and we are opposed for financial reasons, since maintenance of a future dashboard could cost the district over $30,000 per year," he told Patch.

Stone said district officials currently provide parents information on their students' progress through Lakeland's own platform.

"[We] see no reason to add an additional system," he said. 

Lakeland joins a swelling list of Hudson Valley districts, including Yorktown, Pearl River, Pleasantville, Rye Neck, Pelham, Pocantico Hills, Hastings-on-Hudson, South Orangetown, Dobbs Ferry and Mount Pleasant.

New York State Education Department spokesman Tom Dunn said the objections do not accurately reflect the portal content, and steered Patch to the state's updated "data dictionary" that describes every piece of information requested or mandated, and the category it fits in. 

Part of the problem is the amount of information on students that the state collects: test scores, of course, but also disciplinary records, economic and social data.

Opting out of New York's Race to the Top program does not remove a district's obligation to provide student data to the state. Much of the reporting requirements are federal. 

To read more about the Race to the Top and what local school officials have to say, click here.

Lanning Taliaferro contributed to this report.