The Association of Boarding
Schools (TABS) is committed to providing appropriate protection
for personal information that is collected from visitors to our
website. This Online Privacy
Statement describes our general principles for the collection and
use of personal information at www.schools.com.
Information We Collect and Use
In general, our website only
collects personal information when visitors submit it to us, such
as by completing a request for information form. If you provide us with information,
we will use the information to fulfill your request. We may
also use the information internally, such as to conduct follow-up
research from individuals who have requested information about
our member schools.
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Parents and Students
We take children’s privacy and security very
seriously. Prospective boarding school students and
their parents can request information from our member
boarding schools by completing an Information Request Form. This
Form collects contact information (name, address, phone
number) of parents as well as the prospective student’s
name, current school, grade and areas of special interest. If
you complete an Information Request Form for a particular
school, we will send the personal information on the
Form to the designated school so that the school can
provide admissions forms and other information directly
to you. Families requesting our published directory
can do so by calling TABS directly or by using the
Directory Request Form online. Contact information
is stored briefly for directory mailings only. Once
directories are sent, contact information is deleted.
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School Professionals, Educators and
TABS Members
Professional educators and TABS members may
use our website to register for conferences, purchase
publications, access other resources we offer. Additionally, TABS
members may use our website to submit information for the
TABS Directory. If
you provide personal information to us, we will use the information
to fulfill your particular request and for other related
business purposes. We may also use your information
to send you additional information about TABS events and
resources. If you provide us with credit card or other financial
information so that we can process payment for a conference
or other event, we will only use that information to process
your payment for the particular event that you are attending. Credit
card numbers are not stored.
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IP Addresses
Our website also collects
and uses IP addresses for website traffic pattern
analysis, and to otherwise
help administer our web site. We
do not tie IP addresses or other traffic analysis
information to any personal information about you.
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Cookies
Cookies
are small bits of text that are placed
on your computer’s
hard drive. We
currently use cookies
for member login and profile
updating purposes only. These
cookies are not used to obtain
any personal information, and
your use of our site
will not be effected
if you disable the cookie
function on your browser.
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Cookie Sessions
A session cookie is stored
only in the computer's
memory and is never written
to the hard drive. Session cookies are deleted
from the computer when the browser is shut down. Schools.com uses
session cookies to provide features such as our Request for Information
form used for obtaining information from selected schools. For
example, once a Request for Information form is submitted, a cookie
session is stored in the computer’s
memory so that contact information
may be saved, thus eliminating the
need to re-enter form information
should the user wish to send requests
to other schools. (A browser set
to accept no cookies will disable
this feature.)
Information We Share
For parents and prospective
students, we share personally-identifiable
information with member schools only as requested by the individual
who completes the Information Request Form. If you request
information from a particular school, we will provide your information
to that school so it can respond to your request. That school
may provide you with other information as well, in accordance with
its own policies. For professional educators and TABS members, we
will provide information to others as needed to provide the services
requested. For
example, if you register for a conference, we will process your
payment and otherwise use and share your information as needed
to provide the conference services. If you submit personal
information for the TABS member directory, it will be included
in the directory and provided all recipients of the directory.
In all case, however, we will share information
whenever we think it reasonably necessary for law enforcement or
as otherwise permitted by law, to protect our organization, our
members, or members of the community. We may also share information
with third parties who perform services on our behalf, provided
that these third parties agree to keep the information confidential.
Security
While no website can guarantee security, we have reasonable
security measures in place to help prevent the loss, misuse and
alteration of the information under our control. For
example, we use standard Verisign encryption to protect credit
card numbers where this information is collected.
Access
If you are a TABS member, you may access your school’s
profile and directory listing at any time and make changes or updates
clicking on the “For Schools” heading above and clicking
the School Updater found
in the Members Only section. We rely on our members to keep their
profiles current, so we encourage you to update your listing at
least annually.
Choice
We only provide information to website visitors if you request
it from us. If you are a professional educator or member
school, you may receive other materials from us. If you
do not wish to receive information, please let us know and we
will remove you from our mailing list.
Links to Other Websites
Our website may contains links to other websites maintained by
our member schools and other companies that are not affiliates
of ours. We are not responsible for the privacy practices
or the content of such websites, and we encourage you to use
caution when visiting these sites. In particular, we recommend
that you view the privacy notice posted on each such site to
confirm that the site’s policies are acceptable to you.
Questions?
If you have any questions about our Privacy Statement or our polices
with respect to personal information, please email us at the
following address: tabs@schools.com |
