Artificial Intelligence Policy

Security and Data Privacy Overview for K-12 Administrators and IT Teams
Last Updated April 2026

Our Commitment to Your Students and District

Progress Learning is a K-12 standards-aligned platform built to help districts raise test scores, close learning gaps, and support teachers. As we introduce AI-powered features, we are committed to doing so in a way that protects student privacy, gives educators control, and earns the trust of every IT team and administrator who relies on us.

1. Overview of AI Features

Progress Learning is introducing artificial intelligence capabilities designed to help educators work more efficiently. This document describes the AI features currently available or in active rollout, explains how they work, and outlines the data privacy and security practices in place to protect your district.

1.1 AI-Assisted Content Authoring

Progress Learning includes AI-assisted assessment authoring functionality, built on the Author Aide platform developed by Learnosity. This feature is available within the Progress Learning authoring environment and is designed to help educators generate high-quality, standards-aligned assessment items more efficiently.

Key capabilities of the AI-assisted authoring feature include selecting your subject, domain, standard, and DOK, entering a prompt, and AI generates a draft question you can edit and customize before adding it to your assessment.

All content produced through the AI authoring tool is subject to educator review before use. No AI-generated item is published to students without human approval.

1.2 Support Chatbot (Astra)

Progress Learning offers a chatbot, Astra, that answers questions by retrieving information from our existing Help Articles. The chatbot does not use customer conversation data to retrain or permanently update its underlying models.

The chat leverages the Einstein Trust Layer to automatically detect and mask sensitive information (such as personally identifiable information, or PII) before it is processed. This masking process uses its own machine learning models to identify any sensitive data. Separately, machine learning is also used by the chatbot to understand the user’s question (intent and utterance recognition) to find the most relevant help article.

All data is encrypted in transit and at rest. There is a zero-retention policy in place with LLM providers, contractually ensuring that customer interaction data is not stored or used to train their models.

2. Data Privacy and AI Training

2.1 No Use of Your Data for AI Model Training

Progress Learning does not use your district’s data, your students’ data, or any content created within our platform to train AI models. This applies to both Progress Learning’s own systems and our underlying AI technology partners.

Specifically, the AI-assisted authoring feature (Author Aide) does not store or learn from the prompts you or your authors enter. At no time does the system retain or incorporate user-entered prompts into its underlying models.

Plain Language Summary

What you type into our AI features stays with you. Your prompts, your student data, and your content do not feed back into any AI model, whether operated by Progress Learning or our technology partners.

2.2 Content Ownership

Progress Learning and its technology partners make no claim to copyright over any materials you provide to, or that are generated through, the AI authoring tools. All copyright in generated content is assigned to you, our customer, to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law.

2.3 Student Data and FERPA Compliance

Progress Learning is committed to compliance with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). As a service provider to schools and districts, we act in the role of a school official with a legitimate educational interest, handling student data only as directed by and on behalf of the district.

Our FERPA commitments include:

Student data is used solely to provide and improve the educational services your district has contracted for
We do not sell student data or share it with third parties for commercial purposes
Districts retain control over their student data at all times
We support districts in fulfilling their own FERPA obligations, including parent and student data access requests

2.4 COPPA Compliance

Progress Learning is aware of and compliant with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) as it applies to our services for students under the age of 13. Schools and districts using our platform provide consent on behalf of parents in the context of educational use, consistent with COPPA’s school exception. Student data collected from younger learners is used exclusively for educational purposes and is never used for advertising or commercial profiling.

3. Security Infrastructure

Progress Learning’s AI features are built on infrastructure that meets rigorous enterprise security standards. The following describes the security posture of the underlying platform.

Progress Learning SOC 2	Progress Learning holds SOC 2 certification, independently verifying that our controls for security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy meet rigorous third-party audit standards.
Cloud Infrastructure	Hosted across multi-cloud infrastructure, including Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). All underlying data centers are certified ISO 27001 and SOC 2 accredited.
Data Encryption	All customer data, whether at rest or in transit (via protocols like TLS 1.2+), is secured using strong, industry-standard encryption compliant with FIPS 140-2, such as AES-256.
Access Controls	Access is managed using robust role-based access controls (RBAC) and identity management features (IAM). 2-step verification is required for access to key internal systems.
AI Infrastructure	AI capabilities are delivered via enterprise-grade LLM providers operating through trusted cloud environments, including Google Cloud/Gemini Enterprise.
Learner Data Pseudonymization	Student data is pseudonymized. The system processes objective IDs rather than names, meaning the AI infrastructure does not have access to students’ real identities.
Background Checks	All personnel with access to personal data undergo formal background checks consistent with applicable legal requirements.
Security Development	A Secure Development Lifecycle (SDLC) is in place, including security testing, flaw reporting, and engineer training on application security.

4. AI Governance and Human Oversight

Progress Learning believes that AI should support educators, not replace their judgment. Our approach to AI governance is grounded in the following principles:

Educator control: AI-generated content is a starting point, not a final product. Every item produced by AI is reviewed and approved by a human before student use.
Transparency: We are open about which features use AI and how those features work.
No autonomous decision-making: Our AI features do not make decisions about students, their grades, or their learning trajectories without human involvement.

We recognize that K-12 districts are increasingly scrutinizing AI tools before adoption. We welcome those conversations and are happy to provide additional documentation, complete vendor questionnaires, or connect your IT team directly with our security team.

5. Quick Reference for IT Teams

Is student PII shared with AI systems?	No. Student data passed to AI features is pseudonymized using IDs. Real student names and identifiable information are not processed.
Is our data used to train AI models?	No. Progress Learning does not use district or student data to train any AI models, and our underlying AI partners operate under the same constraint.
Who owns AI-generated content?	You do. All content generated through the AI authoring tools is assigned to your district, to the fullest extent allowed by law.
What LLMs power the AI features?	AI features use enterprise-grade LLMs via trusted providers (Learnosity, Salesforce, and Gemini Enterprise).
Is the platform FERPA-compliant?	Yes. Progress Learning acts as a school official with a legitimate educational interest and complies with FERPA data handling requirements.
Is the platform COPPA-compliant?	Yes. Student data from learners under 13 is handled under the school exception and is never used for commercial purposes.
What certifications does Progress Learning hold?	Progress Learning is SOC 2 certified. Our underlying infrastructure also utilizes ISO 27001 certified and SOC 2 accredited data centers.
Who can I contact with security questions?	Contact your Progress Learning account representative, who can connect you with our security team.

6. Contact and Questions

We understand that AI is a topic of significant importance to school boards, parents, and IT teams. If you have questions not addressed in this document, or if your district requires additional documentation to complete a vendor security review, please reach out.

Website: progresslearning.com

For vendor security inquiries: Contact your Progress Learning account representative

Progress Learning is committed to being a transparent, trustworthy partner for every district we serve. AI is one more way we’re working to help students master the standards that matter most, while keeping your community’s data safe.

This document reflects Progress Learning’s policies and practices as of the date noted above. It will be updated as our AI capabilities evolve. Districts are encouraged to request an updated copy annually or upon adoption of new AI features.