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Is Your School, Student Using Tutor.com? · Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott

• 0:05
  Wow, I just it's April first. No jokes around here today, though,
• 0:11
  it's the It's the Morning Show with Preston Scott, Preston Scott Show fifty
• 0:15
  one twenty seven, and it's great to be with you. That's Grant Allen.
• 0:19
  I'm Preston. I'm just shaking my head at the things that we hear
• 0:23
  sometimes, but I am thrilled to have back with us this fine day.
• 0:29
  The Commissioner of Education for the Sunshine State, Manny Diaz, Commissioner, how
• 0:33
  are you, hey, good morning. Great to be with you on this
• 0:37
  April first, But I just want to make sure that we know whatever we're
• 0:41
  talking about this there's no April fool's joke here on, Preston, no none.
• 0:46
  I have been void of any humor today. Unfortunately. Yeah, yeah,
• 0:53
  you released a note and you sent it out to superintendent school boards,
• 0:58
  college presidents of late dealing with tutor dot com. What should what should parents
• 1:03
  know about this? Well, unfortunately, tutor dot com is owned by a
• 1:08
  Chinese company based in Hong Kong called Fromavera Capital, and the CEO and founder
• 1:17
  of that of that capital company does have ties to the Chinese CCP, and
• 1:23
  so we wanted to make sure that all parents number one, all school districts,
• 1:29
  all college presidents are aware because of our major concern with protecting student data
• 1:34
  and here, unfortunately, we see this all too often across sectors of industry
• 1:40
  in our country. But here in Florida, under this governor, we're going
• 1:44
  to remain alert and make sure that everyone is aware and eyes wide open.
• 1:49
  How does it work if a school district joins up with an outside group for
• 1:57
  tutoring like this? Do they have to get DOE approval? Or what is
• 2:00
  the process if there is one? Now they don't when it comes to this
• 2:07
  kind of situation here is this would be completely supplemental. This would be a
• 2:10
  contract or an agreement that a district would enter or a college would enter with
• 2:15
  an individual company. This does not fall under our purview as far as state
• 2:22
  standards and state adopted materials. This would be supplemental. So that's why I
• 2:27
  wanted to make sure that all of our superintendents and our college presidents are aware
• 2:32
  that this could be a danger to our student data, can be a danger
• 2:36
  to our students and a danger to our state in our country. And you
• 2:38
  know, the response has been overwhelming of alert, but There's a second issue
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  here, President that happens with this situation is unfortunately this company, and this
• 2:51
  may have happened before they were acquired, I'm not sure, but this company
• 2:54
  does have some sort of agreement or contract with the Department of Defense. The
• 2:59
  Department of Defense has an education wing that does provide resources to military connected students,
• 3:07
  and we know and in Florida, we have a lot of military families.
• 3:10
  We're military friendly state, and so we are aware that this is provided.
• 3:15
  Access is provided to these students. So we are asking our superintendents to
• 3:21
  make sure they make those families aware. And this has caught the attention of
• 3:25
  members of Congress and members of the US Senate as well at this point.
• 3:30
  So this note that you've sent out at this point is an advisory as opposed
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  to a mandate. Correct. This is something that if the district has a
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  direct contract or in agreement with them, we are asking them to be Now,
• 3:46
  we did have one district that had some sort of relationship with Tutor dot
• 3:51
  com. Immediately after the not immediately dropped their relationship with Tutor dot com.
• 3:55
  And we are expecting then any others that have had that would would want to
• 4:00
  do the same because they wouldn't want to put themselves or their students at risk
• 4:06
  of having their data exposed or used by the Chinese government. Commissioner, do
• 4:13
  you foresee this perhaps becoming a legislative issue in the future. Unfortunately, I
• 4:19
  do, Preston. I think that you've seen the state of Florida, under
• 4:25
  the governor of their governor around the stantus take action against things like the farm
• 4:30
  land and sensitive ties to sensitive materials and agriculture. And I think that you
• 4:36
  know, the Chinese are playing a chess and unfortunately, the leadership in our
• 4:42
  country at this moment is playing checkers. And it takes someone like Governor De
• 4:46
  Santis and that kind of leadership from our legislature to continue to cover all angles
• 4:51
  of protecting our data, protecting our residents, protecting our secrets. And so
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  this is just another opening here. Well, we're going to have to take
• 5:00
  a look at this and figure out what we can do to continue to protect
• 5:03
  ourselves. The morning shoe at Preston Scott, go ahead, make my day
• 5:09
  on news Radio one hundred point seven WFLA. Just a few more minutes with
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  the Commissioner of Education Many Diez Commissioner kind of a similar type subject. I
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  suppose. You know, there's a lot of discussion over whether the United States
• 5:28
  ought to ban TikTok. There's been a lot of talk over the disruptive nature
• 5:32
  of cell phones in our schools. We've touched on it before in our visits.
• 5:36
  Is there any more consideration of just outlawing cell phones in the classroom,
• 5:44
  in the in the school during school hours, have it in the backpack,
• 5:48
  that's fine, but if you use it. Amazingly, Orange County is enacted
• 5:53
  a policy that seems to be working. They have to use it in the
• 5:56
  office, they can't use it in between classes, in the lunch room or
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  anything. And they're seeing a better focus on studies and they're seeing less violence
• 6:03
  in the school from set up situations that people want to post online. Yeah,
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  no doubt, we've seen this also. You know, I walked through
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  the schools in afielda County, have a conversation with the superintendent. They're of
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  the same. They put the policy in place. This is thanks to the
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  leadership of our governor and the proposal he made went to the legislature of saying
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  to students that phones cannot disrupt class from instruction, and that's allowed these districts
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  to go forward with further policy. Look, I think government works best preston
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  when the state lays out the parameters and the local government is able to actually
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  put policies that make sense in place. Sometimes local governments go awry. We
• 6:49
  know that and the state has to step in. But in this case,
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  I think you're seeing it work. Where we laid out the parameters from the
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  state. The governor had said that this is going to be a distraction.
• 7:01
  I myself have walked through, and I think that it is clear that when
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  you don't have these phone distractions, students learn better. We know that these
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  phones are not only a distraction but to the detriment of our students. As
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  much as the progress that we've made with technology has information at students' fingertips,
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  it's also become to their detriment because of all the distractions they have. So
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  I think putting in the general policy is good enough. Having districts put in
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  a policy that they can enforce and that they feel worse at their local level,
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  I think is the best case scenario, and I think you're seeing that
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  work here in the state of Florida. I don't disagree it's best case scenario.
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  But I also know that, and you know this, there are rogue
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  school boards, school districts that are not going to do anything. But when
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  you look at the phone issue, it extends so far beyond the classroom,
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  because you know, kids are bullying other kids, they're setting up fights,
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  they're videotaping it, And I think if we remove that from even happening,
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  we're going to save kids lives. I mean, we see those stories routinely
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  of kids that are bullied into suicide, and I'm just wondering if maybe it's
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  time to push that a little bit further. Look, there's no doubt what
• 8:18
  you're saying is true. If you can eliminate the interaction on the phone,
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  especially during the school day, you can eliminate, you know, more than
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  I would say it's more than half, but it's probably more than seventy five
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  percent of the problems. You know, before we used to see you had
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  regular problems in school. Not anytime that you put a bunch of kids or
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  a teenagers in one place at the same time, there's always going to be
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  what we always called normal issues right across the board. But this has exasperated
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  that. And I think that removing the phone time, especially during the school
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  day, is imperative to having a return to normalcy and a return to paying
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  attention to the right things. You know, having but this isn't you know,
• 9:01
  this is part of the teachers Bill of Rights. So the teachers do
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  have the ability to do that in their classrooms now, regardless of the policy
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  of the school board, because it's in state statue. What you're talking about
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  is going up. And I'm in favor of going above and beyond having a
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  policy that says that you know, it's either only during lunchtime or before and
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  after school that these these phones can come out at all. I think those
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  are good policies. I think they work. And again I think that we
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  want to continue having the theme of having parents involved in those decisions, in
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  making sure that you know, in the event of an emergency, which is
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  really why students should have a cell phone. Right at the end of the
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  day, I got to get picked up when you know, I've let out
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  my parents five minutes late. They let me know before school I forgot something,
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  I have a project that I have to turn in. You know,
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  I'm able to contact my parents, but you know, we start the phones
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  in the the main office is at the school still work as far as I
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  know, Preston, So I think some of that. Again, look,
• 10:05
  parents are gonna technology exists and parents are going to want that comfort. But
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  with that comfort also has to have an understanding that there's a responsibility and parents
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  are part of that responsibility. Commissioner, thanks for the time. We'll look
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  forward to having you back soon. Appreciate it. Have a good one.
• 10:22
  Thank you, sir Manny Diaz, Commissioner of Education. Our guest here in
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  the Morning Show with Preston Scott