Pink Cow · Student privacy
How student information is handled
Written for parents and guardians deciding whether to give permission, and for school districts reviewing us. No jargon, and nothing here is a promise we have not already built.
Last updated 18 August 2026
Two things decide what happens
The first is your permission, which controls whether a teacher can record anything about how your child is doing. The second is the edge of our own systems, which controls what is ever allowed to leave. They work independently, and both are described below.
What your permission controls
A teacher can add your child's name, grade and classroom without permission. That is basic directory information, and it is what lets the teacher send you this request in the first place.
Everything that describes how your child is doing is held behind your decision:
- Observations of progress toward IEP goals
- Goals and the milestones toward them
- Objectives and task breakdowns within a goal
If you decline, the software refuses to record it
This is not a reminder the teacher can click past. The rule is enforced inside the database, so it applies to the website, the iPad app, and anything else that connects — the record is simply rejected. If you later change your mind in either direction, the change takes effect immediately.
Declining does not affect your child's services, placement, or IEP. The teacher keeps records another way, such as on paper or in the district's own system. Permission covers one school year and ends on 31 July, so you will be asked again each year.
The optional AI feature, and what it does not send
Typing IEP goals into a computer takes hours, so Pink Cow offers a feature that reads goals a teacher pastes in and fills them out automatically. Teachers do not have to use it. It is the only part of Pink Cow that sends anything to an outside AI company.
Before the text is sent, your child's name, your name, and your child's student ID are replaced with placeholders, and put back afterwards. So what the AI company receives looks like this:
What the teacher pastes
Marcus Thompson will solve two-digit addition in 4 of 5 trials.
What the AI company receives
[STUDENT] will solve two-digit addition in 4 of 5 trials.
- The company we use for this is Anthropic. They do not use this text to train their AI systems. That is a binding commitment in the commercial contract between us, not an option we switched on and could switch off.
- Anthropic deletes what we send within 30 days. A written data processing agreement governs this, and it requires them to notify us of any security breach within 48 hours.
- Nothing is saved until the teacher has read what came back and confirmed every goal is correct.
- Because we already hold your child's name, removing it is an exact match rather than a guess.
One exception to the 30 days
If Anthropic's automated safety systems flag a piece of content, that content can be kept for up to two years. This applies to every customer of theirs and is not something we can contract out of. We think it is unlikely to affect ordinary IEP goal text, but you should know it is possible rather than find out later.
What this cannot do
We can only remove the names we have been given. If a goal happens to mention a sibling, a therapist, or a school by name, we do not recognise those and they would be included. Teachers are asked to paste only the goals section for this reason. We would rather tell you this than imply a guarantee we cannot keep.
Which companies can see any of it
Pink Cow runs on services built by other companies. Most never touch a student's information at all. All of them process data in the United States.
| Company | What it does | Student records |
|---|---|---|
| Supabase | Stores the database and handles sign-in | Yes |
| Vercel | Runs the Pink Cow application | In transit |
| Anthropic | Optional AI reading of goal text | Names removed |
| Postmark | Sends email, including this request | Child's first name |
| Stripe | Teacher subscription payments | No |
| Twilio | Text messages to teachers who opt in | No |
| Sentry | Reports crashes so we can fix them | Not intentionally |
| PostHog | Measures which features teachers use | No |
| Better Stack | Checks whether the site is online | No |
“Not intentionally” means we do not send student information there on purpose, but a crash report can occasionally include whatever the app was handling when it failed. We would rather say that plainly than claim a guarantee we cannot make.
Your rights
- You can ask to see your child's records at any time.
- You can ask for corrections to anything inaccurate or misleading.
- You can withdraw permission at any time by contacting your child's teacher. Recording stops as soon as it is withdrawn.
- These rights come from the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), 20 U.S.C. § 1232g.
Questions we have not answered here? Email privacy@pinkcow.app.
Read the full Privacy Policy