This Privacy Policy explains how the Cardinal Academy of Technology ("CAT," "we," "us," or "our"), an engineering and technology pathway (a California Partnership Academy) at Whittier High School in the Whittier Union High School District, handles information in connection with the web applications listed below.
These are internal classroom tools, built and operated by CAT staff for our own students and teachers. They run a 3D-printer farm, a print and fabrication order queue, classroom digital signage, and a work-completion music reward system. This policy applies to all four:
- CAT Prints: prints.whscat.com
- CAT Board: catboard.whscat.com
- CAT Print Farm: printfarm.whscat.com
- CAT Jukebox: jukebox.whscat.com
At a glance
| Application | Who signs in with Google | Google sign-in data | Additional Google data accessed |
|---|---|---|---|
| CAT Prints | Staff only (designated students use a separate username/password) | Name, email, profile photo | None |
| CAT Board | CAT staff only (Mr. Oliver & Mr. Swanson) | Name, email, profile photo | None |
| CAT Print Farm | Staff dashboard only (no student login) | Name, email, profile photo | Google Form responses and the uploaded file, read by a service account (Sheets and Drive, read-only) |
| CAT Jukebox | Teachers only (students use a separate username/password) | Email only (openid + email) | Google Classroom (read-only): courses, coursework, student submissions |
"Google sign-in data" refers to the standard Google openid, email, and profile scopes, used only to confirm an authorized user and show their account. CAT Jukebox's teacher sign-in uses openid and email only (no profile). Where students sign in (CAT Prints and CAT Jukebox), they use a username and a securely hashed password issued within the app, not a Google account.
The applications, in detail
CAT Prints
prints.whscat.com
CAT Prints is the order and job-tracking queue for CAT's classroom fabrication services: printing and custom products (banners, posters, stickers, fatheads, shirts, laser-cut items) and photobooth and popcorn rentals. Staff manage orders, and student workers ("specialists") help produce them.
What an order collects: your first and last name and email address, the order details (sizes, quantities, an optional project name and design description, and for rentals the event date and location), and any files you upload. We do not collect a phone number, and there are no advertising or tracking cookies.
Who sees it: CAT staff see the full order to fulfill it. Student-worker specialists see a minimized view, first name and last initial only, with no email and no pricing. The in-shop TV board shows only first name and last initial.
Sign-in: staff sign in with Google (OpenID Connect), limited to an allow-list. openidemailprofile Used only to confirm an authorized staff member and display the account, held in the session and not written to our database. Student workers sign in with a username and a securely hashed password, not a Google account.
Data minimization: uploaded design files are automatically deleted about 14 days after an order is completed, and hidden metadata (such as GPS and camera info) is stripped from uploaded photos. Order information is never sent to any advertising, analytics, or AI service. Database backups are encrypted and stored off-site.
What we do not access: any Google data beyond the staff sign-in above.
CAT Board
catboard.whscat.com
CAT Board powers the digital signage on the classroom TVs. Students and staff share photos of field trips, classwork, and CAT events by emailing them to whs.catphotos@wuhsd.org, a district Google Workspace account. A photo is displayed only for a student whose parental media-release consent is on file, and clearing that consent removes their photos and blocks new ones.
Sign-in: Only authorized CAT staff (Mr. Oliver and Mr. Swanson) sign in with Google to reach the dashboard. openidemailprofile Student and other accounts are not authorized to sign in. The mailbox is read using IMAP with an app password, not a Google API, so no Gmail scope is involved.
Review before display: apart from a few vetted social-media-team students, every submission waits in a queue and is not shown until a staff member approves it. Staff can remove any photo at any time.
Data minimization: location and device metadata (EXIF and GPS) are stripped from every photo and video on arrival. Media is served only through short-lived signed links, never a public folder. A student's email is stored once on the roster rather than on each photo, the original device filename is not kept, and identifying details are kept out of the application logs. No photo is ever sent to an AI service, and the optional text-moderation feature that could send a caption to an AI service is turned off.
What we store: the submitted photos and videos (which may show students and CAT activities), a first name and last initial for on-screen attribution, and the staff reviewer's name and email (to record who reviewed a photo). Displayed media appears only on in-classroom signage.
Retention: photos and videos are automatically removed after about 90 days, and a student's records are purged after they graduate. The internal review history keeps no student names and is pruned after a year. A single action erases a student and their photos on request, and backups are encrypted before any copy leaves the server.
What we do not access: any other Google data.
CAT Print Farm
printfarm.whscat.com
CAT Print Farm automates and tracks our classroom 3D-printer fleet. Students do not log in. A student submits a print request through a Google Form, providing their name, school email, class period, and a sliced print file. The form responses collect into a Google Sheet, which our software reads using a Google service account (read access to that Sheet and read-only access to the uploaded file in Drive). Our software checks that the file was sliced correctly, dispatches it to a printer in the classroom, and emails the student when the print starts and finishes, including a timelapse video of the job.
Staff dashboard: CAT staff sign in with Google (openid, email, profile), limited to an allow-list, to manage the printer fleet. No student signs in.
Notification email: these messages are sent from whittierhighstem@gmail.com using standard email (SMTP with an app password, not a Google API). This is a temporary sending account used until the district provisions a dedicated address.
What we store: the name, email, and class period the student enters; the submitted print file; the print job's status; and the timelapse media.
Data minimization: the uploaded file is dispatched to the printer under a non-identifying job number (for example CAT-1234), so a student's name and class period are not embedded in the file sent to the printer or shown on the printer. A job's identifying details (name, email, teacher, class period) are automatically removed from its record about 30 days after the print finishes, leaving only non-identifying job statistics. The separate filament-usage tally is kept under a one-way identifier, not a name or email.
What we do not access: any data from a student's personal Google account. The service account reads only the academy's own form-response Sheet and the file the student uploaded, read-only.
CAT Jukebox
jukebox.whscat.com
CAT Jukebox is a classroom reward tool: a student may queue a song to play on the classroom jukebox only when they are caught up on their Google Classroom work. This is the only app that reads Google Classroom data, and it does so read-only.
Student sign-in. Students sign in with a username and a securely hashed password issued within the app, not a Google account. Each student also has a small linked record used for the work check (described below).
Teacher sign-in and Classroom connection. A teacher signs in with Google and connects their Google Classroom. To identify the connecting teacher, the app requests two identity scopes (openid and userinfo.email). To run the work check, it then reads the following, read-only, for the classes that teacher teaches:
- Classes (
classroom.courses.readonly): class names and IDs, to identify the relevant courses. - Coursework (
classroom.coursework.students.readonly): assignment titles, types, and due dates, to determine which assignments are past due. - Student submissions (
classroom.student-submissions.students.readonly): each student's turned-in status, and the first and last name a student types into two short-answer "name" questions the teacher posts.
Why. We use this data to compute, per student, how many assignments are past due and not turned in, and to show the appropriate status. The two name answers are used to link a student's otherwise-anonymous Google identifier to their jukebox account, because our district does not expose student names through the Classroom directory.
What we do not access or store. We do not access or store student grades or scores, assignment file contents, student email addresses, the class roster or directory, or any district student-ID number. We never store a student's full last name. From Classroom, a matched student is stored only as an opaque Google identifier and a missing-assignment count, with no name at all. A first name and last initial are kept only temporarily for a student we could not match automatically, so a teacher can resolve it, and are removed once the student is matched. In public views, students appear as a first name and last initial only (for example, "Marcos R.").
How it's handled. Classroom data is read through the connecting teacher's account, processed on a private server, and reduced to a small per-student record in a local database. The raw coursework and submissions are processed in memory and are never saved. Counts refresh automatically and are overwritten on each sync. The teacher's authorization is encrypted at rest, is used only to enable that refresh, and is deleted when the teacher disconnects. A student's record is removed when the student is deleted, when Classroom is disconnected, or when the student is no longer enrolled in the teacher's classes.
Music playback. Selected songs play through the classroom's own Spotify account, connected once by a staff member. Students do not connect a personal music account, and we do not access any student music-service data.
Google API Services, Limited Use
CAT Jukebox's use of information received from Google APIs, and all four applications' use of any Google user data, adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. We do not use Google user data for advertising, we do not sell or transfer it, and we do not allow humans to read it except as necessary to operate or maintain the application, for security, or where required by law and with consent.
Student data and minors
These tools are operated by a public school for its enrolled students, the majority of whom are minors. We treat the information involved as protected student data and use it only for the legitimate educational and classroom purposes described above.
- FERPA. Consistent with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (20 U.S.C. Sec. 1232g), student information in these tools is handled by school officials for legitimate educational purposes and is not disclosed for unrelated uses.
- California SOPIPA and AB 1584. Consistent with California's Student Online Personal Information Protection Act (Cal. Bus. and Prof. Code Sec. 22584) and Cal. Ed. Code Sec. 49073.1, we do not sell student information, do not use it for targeted advertising, and do not build student profiles for any purpose other than the school purpose described here.
- No advertising, no sale. We never display advertising in these tools and never sell, rent, or trade any student or staff information.
Data retention and deletion
- CAT Jukebox: each per-student record is overwritten on every sync. A teacher can disconnect Google Classroom at any time, which revokes our access and deletes the stored authorization. Student records and logins are removed on request and when a student is no longer enrolled in the program.
- CAT Print Farm: submitted print files are deleted on a short schedule, about 7 days after a successful print and about 30 days for a failed one, and timelapse media on a similar window. A job's identifying details (name, email, teacher, class period) are automatically removed from its record about 30 days after the print finishes; the filament-usage tally is kept under a one-way identifier, not a name or email.
- CAT Board: photos and videos are automatically removed after about 90 days, and a student's records are purged after they graduate; the review history keeps no student names and is pruned after a year. A single action erases a student and their photos on request.
- CAT Prints: uploaded design files are deleted about 14 days after an order is completed. Order records (name, email, order details) are kept for bookkeeping and removed on request.
- How to request deletion: email steven.swanson@wuhsd.org and we will delete the requested data. See also our Data and deletion page.
- Revoke access yourself: any staff member or teacher can remove an app's access to their Google account at any time at myaccount.google.com/permissions.
How we protect information
Our applications run on a private server operated by the academy rather than a third-party cloud, and access to the dashboards and stored data is restricted to authorized CAT staff. Connections to the applications use HTTPS. We apply reasonable administrative and technical safeguards appropriate to the limited information we hold.
Third-party services
We rely on a small number of providers strictly to operate these tools:
- Google: staff and teacher sign-in; the Google Classroom API (Jukebox); and Google Forms, Sheets, and Drive, read by a service account, for Print Farm intake.
- Gmail (standard email): the Print Farm sends notification emails, and CAT Board receives photo submissions, through Gmail mailboxes over standard email (SMTP and IMAP), not the Gmail API.
- Spotify: music playback on the classroom jukebox only.
We do not share information with advertisers, data brokers, or any party for marketing purposes, and none of these applications send student or order data to any AI or large-language-model service.
Changes to this policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we do, we will revise the "Last updated" date at the top of this page. Material changes affecting how we handle student data will be communicated through the academy.
Contact us
Cardinal Academy of Technology
Whittier High School, 12417 E. Philadelphia St., Whittier, CA 90601
Steven Swanson, Co-Director, steven.swanson@wuhsd.org