About the Assessment Center

What the Assessment Center is

The Scholar's Ascent Assessment Center is the online platform your scholar uses in this course to take assessments, practice skills, and get feedback. It holds the quizzes and tests for the class, scores them, and shows your scholar which Texas standards they have mastered and which still need work.

Beta Academy leadership has approved the Assessment Center for internal classroom use. It is used alongside the other digital learning applications the school has approved — not instead of them — and it is a required part of the course, the same way a textbook or a graded notebook would be.

Because every scholar in this class is assessed on the same work, in the same place, on the same terms, there is no opt-out. Allowing some scholars to use a different system would mean grading them against a different standard, and that is not something I am willing to do to anyone's education. This is the same expectation that applies to any other approved instructional material in the course.

Who built and operates it

It was built and is operated by your scholar's teacher, Dr. Goodluck Ijezie-Desbois, through The Scholar's Ascent — a protected series of Ascendant Road Holdings LLC, a Texas series limited liability company.

• OperatorThe Scholar's Ascent — a protected series of Ascendant Road Holdings LLC, a Texas series limited liability company
• Built byDr. Goodluck Ijezie-Desbois, the classroom teacher — not a third-party vendor the school purchased from
• Who can see the dataYour scholar sees their own work. Dr. Ijezie-Desbois sees the class. Other scholars and their families cannot see your scholar.
• Sold or advertised?No. Scholar data is never sold, shared with advertisers, or used to build commercial profiles.
• Cost to familiesNone.

What it collects

Scholars are identified inside the system by a class alias, not by their legal name. Assessment work, practice results, and progress are stored against that alias.

• Assessment responses, scores, and time-on-task for teacher-assigned work
• Practice-session results and mastery by Texas standard (TEKS)
• Structured notes, saved game states, avatars and earned progression
• That a feature was opened — but not what was inside it (no calculator expressions, note text, search terms, or answers are recorded as usage data)
• Post-assessment survey responses, which are confidential but not anonymous — the teacher can see who wrote them

Some tools save only in your scholar's own browser and never reach a server at all. The Privacy Policy lists exactly which ones, in Section 2.

How your scholar's information is protected

These are the specific measures in place. They are described plainly rather than in marketing terms, and each one is something the platform actually does today.

• EncryptionAll traffic to and from the site uses SSL/TLS. Data is stored in Google Firebase, encrypted in transit and at rest.
• Alias, not nameAcademic records are stored under a class alias. The alias-to-name mapping stays with the teacher and school, not in the assessment records.
• Sign-in credentialsScholar PINs are never stored as readable text. They are stored as a keyed cryptographic hash that is unique to each scholar and each school year, using a secret key held on the server. Repeated failed attempts temporarily lock the account.
• Access controlDatabase rules restrict scholar records to that scholar and the teacher. Teacher-only areas additionally verify the teacher's identity on the server, not just in the browser.
• Weak-PIN blockingObvious PINs are rejected at the point a scholar sets one.
• HostingGoogle Firebase / Google Cloud. The platform does not run on personal hardware.

AI assistance and integrity monitoring

Written and essay responses may be scored with AI assistance (Google Gemini) against a rubric I write. Only the class alias and the response text are sent — never your scholar's real name — and the service does not keep that text to train its models. Multiple-choice questions are graded by answer key, not by AI. I review and can override any AI-assisted grade. AI is never used to profile scholars or make disciplinary or placement decisions.

During locked assessments only, the platform records tab switches, fullscreen exits, and paste events — comparable to Google Forms' locked mode. There is no screen recording, no webcam, and no logging of what is typed. Flags are advisory; I review them before any action. This monitoring does not run during ordinary use of the site.

Data retention and your right to deletion

• How longAssessment data is kept for the current school year and archived at year-end. Individual usage records are kept about 100 days.
• DeletionYou may request deletion of your scholar's data at any time. Requests are honored within 45 days, as Texas law requires.
• How to askContact me through ParentSquare or school email. You do not need to give a reason.
• Inspect & reviewUnder FERPA you may inspect and review your scholar's records and request corrections. See the FERPA Notice.

The policies that govern this

Two sets of documents apply. The STEM Studio documents cover this website and the classroom platform your scholar uses. The Scholar's Ascent documents cover the organization that operates it.

Dr. Ijezie's STEM Studio — drijezie.com

The Scholar's Ascent — thescholarsascent.org

Questions are welcome

If anything here raises a question — about what is stored, who can see it, how long it is kept, or how to have it removed — please reach out through ParentSquare or at gijezie-desbois@betaacademy.org. You will get a straight answer, and asking will never affect your scholar's standing in the class.