First Things First and its contractors/grantees (“FTF”) provide services related to professional development of child care providers through the azregistry.org and azearlychildhood.org websites (the “Arizona Registry”). FTF takes your privacy and the protection of information about individual participants seriously. FTF is committed to maintaining the security of that information. The questions and answers below explain why FTF collects information on the early care and education workforce in Arizona, who else may see that information, and how FTF will protect your privacy.
What services does the Arizona Registry provide?
The Arizona Registry provides the Early Care and Education workforce a place to:
- Create a confidential personal online profile that can be accessed and updated 24/7 and always ready to apply to a professional resume.
- Track early childhood experience and work history, education, and professional development hours that will be calculated into a lattice level.
- Search and register for professional development opportunities anywhere in the state.
- Maintain a running record of professional development, available as an education and professional development certificate suitable for printing and emailing.
- Apply for program administrator access to assist with program management.
- Apply to become a professional development instructor to register participants and track professional development offerings
What information does FTF collect from the Arizona Registry?
The Arizona Registry collects self-reported information provided by its users including demographics, education, professional development, and work experience. In addition, the Arizona Registry may use cookies and may also generate a log file about your visit, which may include the pages you visited, the date, time, and length of your visit, information about the computer used, including the operating system, the browser used, the Internet Protocol address, the language, the network, the country setting, and the mobile device (if applicable); and the referring website. We may also track the number and frequency of hits per page on an aggregate basis. Users may refuse to accept or delete cookies at any time.
Why is FTF collecting information through the Arizona Registry?
The Arizona Registry is a tool for the early care and education (“ECE”) system in Arizona to collect information about professionals and organizations/programs in the ECE field. The Arizona Registry works in different ways for professionals, programs, public officials, and advocates. This information will be used to:
- Bring professional recognition to all those who work in ECE.
- Assist individuals and program directors in professional development (PD) planning.
- Assist individuals and program directors in documenting credentials required by law and by accrediting organizations.
- Inform policymakers and state planners about the ECE workforce to track progress in meeting state workforce goals.
- To help make the case that ECE staff need to be paid wages that reflect their education, PD, and experience.
As an individual participant, in most cases your personal information is not disclosed in a way that reveals your identity and is used only in combination with the information of other participants. That means that the information is reported by large groups of people, for example, “the average educational level of all assistant teachers in licensed centers,” rather than the actual educational level of any individual teacher. There are limited exceptions to this rule explained below.
Your participation in the Arizona Registry will be a benefit to you personally as a record of your education, PD, and work experience. This record might be used for career advancement, program reporting, accreditation, and applying for scholarships without your having to report the same information multiple times. Your participation will also benefit the ECE field as a whole, as FTF helps Arizona’s teachers, directors, and administrators improve the quality of care and education for young children.
Can I use the Arizona Registry without my information being collected?
Most information collected from the Arizona Registry consists of data, information, and documents intentionally submitted by people who are signing up or who have already signed up to participate in the Registry. People may view certain information on the Arizona Registry without signing up for the Registry, thus limiting the information collected. It is not possible to register without submitting certain required information. Apart from the information required to be submitted in order to register, the Arizona Registry may use cookies and may also generate a log file about your visit, which may include the pages you visited, the date, time, and length of your visit, information about the computer used, including the operating system, the browser used, the Internet Protocol address, the language, the network, the country setting, and the mobile device (if applicable); and the referring website. We may also track the number and frequency of hits per page on an aggregate basis. Users may refuse to accept or delete cookies at any time.
As a participant, what access do I have to my own data?
Individual participants may view and change some of their own information in the Arizona Registry. Participant’s education, professional development, and certificate/credential information can only be entered or changed by FTF. This is because FTF attempts to verify that information so it can be accepted by other agencies without your having to provide it to them.
Who has access to my data and for what purposes?
The general rule of the Arizona Registry is that only combined summary data that does not identify any individual participant will be available to authorized users for appropriate purposes. These purposes include workforce planning and PD, research and evaluation, telling the public about the qualifications of teachers, and program and federal reporting. However, some authorized users have a legitimate need for limited information about individual participants.
Approved program directors and administrators may view the following data of their own employees: name, Registry identification number, address, email address, phone number, role, scholarship requests, experience, education, PD information, and other related information. Program directors and administrators will be asked to verify your current employment to complete your Arizona Registry entry. They may use the employment, education, PD and scholarship information about their staff for PD planning and to establish staff qualifications for First Things First funded programs (including TEACH, REWARD$, and Quality First), the Department of Economic Security, the Department of Health Services, the Department of Education, and Head Start since programs must meet certain teacher requirements in order to receive state or federal funding. Local, state, and federal program administrators will also be able to view this data on staff in publicly funded programs for reporting purposes.
Some sensitive personal information linked to individuals, such as family income, family size, health insurance, and equal opportunity information, may be viewed only by local, state, and federal level program administrators and only as required for essential program purposes and for state or federal reporting.
FTF may view all individual and program information. FTF needs to view this information to maintain the system, verify employment and education data, administer scholarship requests, manage the PD program, and report on the ECE workforce. FTF may also use individual participant information to establish qualifications and credentials required for program accreditation, Quality First, and other programs and systems in the early childhood arena.
The contact information and course offerings of PD Instructors who are participating in the Arizona Registry may be available to the general public so that interested people can contact those Instructors.
What security measures are in place to protect my information?
Registry servers are hosted at an SAS 70 Type II secure network operations data center. Web hosting and data servers are housed behind a firewall and are further secured with SSL certificates and virtual web addresses. Database servers are not directly accessible to the public internet, and are connected to the web servers via a separate and dedicated network interface. All communications, including the transfer of cookies and data, are encrypted over SSL. Additional security is in place to limit exposure to cross site scripting XSS and session hijacking attacks. The application has role based access and utilizes a unique log in and password combination.
If you have any questions about this privacy policy, you may contact FTF at info@thearizonaregistry.org or 1.855.818.6613.