Protecting your private information is our priority. This Statement of Privacy applies to the www.directionsurvey.com and Vanden Corporation and governs data collection and usage. For the purposes of this Privacy Policy, unless otherwise noted, all references to Vanden Corporation include www.directionalleadership.com, Vanden, Direction Survey, directionsurvey.com and pcesolutions.org. The Vanden website is a Direction Survey and Resource Database site. By using the Vanden website, you consent to the data practices described in this statement.
Vanden Corporation ("Vanden", "we", "our", or "us") cares deeply about privacy, and we recognize that it is important to the educators, students, parents and communities we serve. We strive to be as transparent as possible in our privacy and security practices. We offer users a survey and resource database (database) that they can use to survey students, parents, teachers, and staff, and to analyze the responses and related information (the “Services”). This Privacy Policy explains how this information is gathered, used, and shared as we provide our Services. We use the information we gather to help schools and communities address identified areas of needed interventions. We do not sell or rent any information for marketing purposes.
You acknowledge that this Privacy Policy is designed to be read in connection with the Terms of Service and that by accessing or using our Site, you agree to be bound by the Terms of Service, as well as this Policy.
USEFUL TERMS
A "School" refers to a school, district or other educational organization.
A "Community" refers to community organizations, tribes, after school programs, or city led organizations.
"Personal Information" This refers to information that lets us know the specifics of who you are. Examples of Personal information may include your first and last name, company name, postal address, and email address. Personal information does not include any information which you provide regarding third parties, such as students, while using the Services. When you engage in certain activities on this Site, such as registering for an account, submitting orders for our products and/or our services, or sending us feedback, we may ask you to provide certain Personal information.
"Education Information" means information gathered from students, parents, teachers, and staff, and information provided to us by Schools and Community. Education Information may include Personal Information from identified staff members.
HOW WE GATHER INFORMATION
Information provided During Registration Process
When you register your organization(s) to access the Direction Survey and Resource Database we collect your basic contact information including: name, email address, school and district name, city, state and zip code. You will also set up an admin password to access the database.
The registration process also obtains school, district and community demographics, which includes enrollment, ethnicity, free and reduced lunch indicators (which are a measure of school poverty) and a geographic classification for urban, rural or suburban. It is the responsibility of the participating schools and districts to recruit their specific stakeholders to oversee the access to the Database. By registering an organization, city, or school site, you acknowledge that you have the authority and the approval to properly represent the decisions of that agency in the Site.
Information provided when you subscribe to our mailing lists
By signing up in the Site, you agree to receive all emails from PLUS Program. Information we will collect in the sign up process is your name and email address. You will also enter additional contact information such as your title and phone number, the name of your organization, address, city, state and zip.
Information provided from participants who take the survey
We do not collect any personal identifying information from the survey participants. All survey responses are collected anonymously and 100% confidential. We do not have any identifying characteristics that can link a survey to a specific respondent.
Automatically Collected Information
During the survey process, we gather certain information automatically and store it in log files. This information includes internet protocol (IP) addresses, date/time stamp, and survey pages completed. We use this information to keep track of the survey status. Additionally, we use temporary “cookies” to track the movement through the survey; these "cookies" expire within a couple of hours and are deleted when the survey is finished.
Information from Schools and Communities
When a school or community uses the database, it will share the results of the responses from surveys taken by students, staff, parents and community members. These responses are shared in a parenting system that feeds the data in a hierarchal pattern. For example, data collected at the school level will be shared with identified individuals at the district level, county level, state level, national level, and international level.
Information from Students, Parents, Teachers, and Staff. We may gather information directly from students, parents, teachers, and staff through the use of surveys and related tools, which are part of our Services to Schools and communities. That information may include or be closely tied to Personal Information if it is necessary to provide the Services requested by Schools and Communities.
Customer Support
We may receive Personal Information through communications to our customer support team. This information may help us provide faster and more effective support.
Automated Technologies
We may gather and store information that is generated automatically during user interactions with our websites or emails we send. This information may include IP addresses and information stored in cookies (small text files placed in visitors’ computer browsers) and similar technologies. We use information gathered in this way to enhance our users’ experiences—for example, to remember when users are already logged in to our websites so they do not need to log in again. Most browsers have an option to block or delete cookies, though this may affect the use of our Services. In some cases, we use outside parties to provide these services for us—for instance, we use Google Analytics to count the number of people who visit our website.
In addition to the uses of your information described elsewhere in this privacy policy, we may also use your information in one or more of the following ways. We will not use or share your contact information in ways unrelated to those described in this privacy policy without your permission.
Communications from Direction Survey
We will use your contact information to communicate with you and provide you with transactional messages in response to your inquiries, to provide you with information you request, and to manage your account participation. We may use your information to contact you when new reports and presentations are available, or to let you know about opportunities that may be of interest to you.
Use of Survey Questions and Results
Your survey questions, responses and results are kept in strict confidence. We aggregate the questions and responses into national, state, district and school level totals. Once a survey is submitted, the survey is automatically included in this aggregation process. You do have the opportunity to delete any and all surveys you choose. Once the surveys are completed and the results are aggregated, participating schools and districts have the ability to view their questions and aggregated survey results with national benchmarks online to cross reference. You may use this information for your own analysis purposes.
Statistical Analyses
Vanden Corporation reserves the right to perform statistical analyses of the data based on school demographic and participant supplied demographic information. For example, we may analyze responses based on any one of these optionally entered fields: grade, gender, ethnicity, years experience, educational attainment, or income.
Sharing information with 3rd parties: State Departments of Education, County Office of Education, Universities, Non Profits and For Profit Organizations
Vanden Corporation works with State Departments and County Office of Education, Universities, non-profits and for profit organizations to help their specific districts (jurisdictions) and schools utilize the survey process and results. Aggregated national, state (or provincial) or district results are made available to these participating agencies for their review.
Other Third Parties
Vanden Corporation does not share any information collected with any 3rd parties.
Collection of your Personal Information
Vanden may collect personally identifiable information, such as your name. If you purchase Vanden’s products and services, we collect billing and credit card information. This information is used to complete the purchase transaction. Vanden may also collect anonymous demographic information, which is not unique to you, such as your age, gender and race. We may gather additional personal or non-personal information in the future.
Information about your computer hardware and software may be automatically collected by Vanden. This information can include: your IP address, browser type, domain names, access times and referring website addresses. This information is used for the operation of the service, to maintain quality of the service, and to provide general statistics regarding use of the Vanden website.
Please keep in mind that if you directly disclose personally identifiable information or personally sensitive data through Vanden’s public message boards, this information may be collected and used by others.
Vanden encourages you to review the privacy statements of websites you choose to link to from Vanden so that you can understand how those websites collect, use and share your information. Vanden is not responsible for the privacy statements or other content on websites outside of the Vanden website.
Use of your Personal Information
Vanden collects and uses your personal information to operate its website(s) and deliver the services you have requested.
Vanden may also use your personally identifiable information to inform you of other products or services available from Vanden and its affiliates. Vanden may also contact you via surveys to conduct research about your opinion of current services or of potential new services that may be offered.
Vanden does not sell, rent or lease its customer lists to third parties.
Vanden may, from time to time, contact you on behalf of external business partners about a particular offering that may be of interest to you. In those cases, your unique personally identifiable information (e-mail, name, address, telephone number) is not transferred to the third party. Vanden may share data with trusted partners to help perform statistical analysis, send you email or postal mail, provide customer support, or arrange for deliveries. All such third parties are prohibited from using your personal information except to provide these services to Vanden, and they are required to maintain the confidentiality of your information.
Vanden will disclose your personal information, without notice, only if required to do so by law or in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to: (a) conform to the edicts of the law or comply with legal process served on Vanden or the site; (b) protect and defend the rights or property of Vanden; and, (c) act under exigent circumstances to protect the personal safety of users of Vanden, or the public.
Security of your Personal Information
Vanden secures your personal information from unauthorized access, use or disclosure. When personal information (such as a credit card number) is transmitted to other websites, it is protected through the use of encryption, such as the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol.
Children Under Thirteen
We do not gather Personal Information from children under the age of 13, as defined by applicable law, unless we believe we have legal permission to do so, as indicated by Schools acting on behalf of parents or guardians. We require our Schools to obtain any necessary parental consent or provide any required disclosures to parents or guardians. We will gather information from students directly only as requested by a School and only for the purposes of providing our Services to the School. If you believe we have unknowingly gathered a child’s information without the appropriate consent, please contact us immediately at – info@directionsurvey.com
How we use Education Information
To Administer Surveys for Schools and Communities. We ask only for information that we believe is necessary to provide our Services. This information may include email addresses for teachers, and staff members (and sometimes snail mail addresses where necessary to make sure everyone can participate); and student demographic information. We use this information in order to configure surveys data correctly and to administer them efficiently and accurately.
To Provide Reports. Vanden Corporation uses Education Information to provide Schools with reports that help them improve students’ educational experiences. We distribute reports electronically in conjunction with Schools to ensure that only the intended audiences have access to reports.
For Research and Development. We may use Education Information, including Personal Information, for research and development purposes as we try to share best practices with the education community and improve the tools we offer to Schools. These research and development purposes could include testing new tools to include in reports, performing validity studies, developing new product features, and making other usability improvements. We may also use anonymized and/or aggregated Education Information for other purposes with permissions from our Schools.
How we Share Information
With the School that Commissioned Our Services. We share information gathered from students, teachers, parents, and staff with this School.
As Required by Law or to Ensure Safety. We may be required to disclose, access, and/or preserve information in order to comply with law enforcement requests and legal process. We may also do so to protect users’, our, or others’ rights, property, or safety.
As Part of a Merger, Sale, or Other Asset Transfer. We can’t predict the future, and there’s a chance that our company’s ownership might change—for example through a merger or an acquisition. In that event, information may be transferred as permitted by law and/or contract, provided that the receiving entity, like Vanden, does not sell or rent information for marketing purposes.
Opt-Out & Unsubscribe
We respect your privacy and give you an opportunity to opt-out of receiving announcements of certain information. Users may opt-out of receiving any or all communications from Vanden by contacting us.
Changes to this Statement
Vanden will occasionally update this Statement of Privacy to reflect company and customer feedback. Vanden encourages you to periodically review this Statement to be informed of how Vanden is protecting your information.
Contact Information
Vanden welcomes your questions or comments regarding this Statement of Privacy. If you believe that Vanden has not adhered to this Statement, please contact Vanden at:
Vanden Corporation
PO Box 677
Murrieta, California 92564
Email Address: info@directionsurvey.com
Telephone number: 866-403-9484
Effective as of June 1, 2021