Seattle Public Schools issues statement explaining its stance on grade-viewing app

Seattle Public Schools responded Monday night to GeekWire’s request for more information about the message it sent last week informing families and staff that a grade-viewing app for iOS was not authorized by the district.

The app was developed by a former Seattle Public Schools student, Evan Mazor, and operated successfully by him for more than three years, prior to the district sending its message last week advising users to delete the app.

But the situation changed after the app was acquired last month by a company called GradePro. The company migrated “The Source: SPS” users to its own app, which offers subscriptions including a $7.99 yearly plan.

Here is the statement sent by SPS last night in response to GeekWire’s questions:

Seattle Public Schools (SPS) is aware the unauthorized The Source: SPS app was created by a former student.  Once the district discovered the app had been monetized and was using the SPS name and logo without permission, we took action to stop the misleading marketing and asked families to discontinue its use. 

The district does not control which apps are developed and offered by outside entities. Apps accessing our systems or data must be authorized by the district and comply with our vendor agreements. PowerSchool, our official vendor, explicitly prohibits this type of third party app in their use agreement.

SPS strongly advises utilizing only district-approved applications. PowerSchool offers a free and secure mobile app called PowerSchool Mobile. This app provides essential features for students and parents, including real-time tracking of grades, attendance, and more. PowerSchool Mobile is the only approved app for families to view student data hosted on the district’s portal.

Contacted via email, Wes Cossick of GradePro had this to say about the SPS statement:

The app called “The Source: SPS” was not monetized; it was a free app with no in-app purchases and no ads.

GradePro offers an alternative way for students and parents to check grades on their phones, with support for tens of thousands of schools across the country. Since launching more than a decade ago, over 1 million users have loved & trusted GradePro—either because no official app exists, or because GradePro offers significantly more features and a faster, more user friendly interface.

We place a strong emphasis on data privacy & security, and we work with outside counsel to ensure GradePro’s design exceeds the strictest data privacy regulations in the country. Moreover, GradePro is part of the Sparksuite family of companies, which builds software products for millions of users across the globe—including in the FinTech space, where security is an utmost priority. That knowledge is shared across our engineering teams to ensure all of our products meet or exceed industry-standard security practices.

See our prior coverage here.