01The number, not the name
This one design choice is what makes Markwell safe for student data. Students write an assigned number on their worksheet instead of their name. When a page is scanned and sent for grading, the only things that leave your workspace are the page image, that number, and your rubric. The list that connects a number back to a real child, their name, their family's email, lives only in your own private roster and is never sent anywhere.
Because the identifying key stays with you, the work sent for grading is de-identified. Under US Department of Education guidance, properly de-identified information is not protected personally identifiable information. You keep control of the identified record at all times.
02What data Markwell handles
Sent to the AI for grading
The de-identified page image, the assigned number, and your rubric or answer key. That is all.
Kept private, never sent to the AI
Student names, student and guardian email addresses, and the roster that links a number to a name.
Stored in your workspace
Your roster, the scanned pages, the grades and your notes, and a record of what was graded and approved.
Your account
Your name, email, and a securely hashed password (or Google sign-in). Payment is handled by Stripe; Markwell never sees your card number.
03The AI that grades
Markwell's first-pass grading is done by a frontier vision model from OpenAI, through its commercial API. The model reads the de-identified page and scores it against your rubric. Two commitments hold here:
- No training on your data. Student work submitted through the API is not used to train or improve any AI model, OpenAI's or anyone else's.
- Nothing identifying is sent. The model sees a page and a number. It never receives a name, a face, a voice, a contact, or a roster link.
We disclose our AI subprocessor plainly so a school can post it: student worksheets are processed by OpenAI's API for the sole purpose of producing a first-pass score against the teacher's rubric.
04A human always signs off
Markwell is human-in-the-loop by design. The tool produces a first pass and flags anything it is unsure about. The teacher reviews flagged work, can change any score, and approves every grade before it is filed or sent. Approvals are recorded. There is no auto-approve mode, deliberately, and one will not be added. The AI is never the final word on a child's grade; you are.
05How your data is stored and protected
- Your own private workspace. Each teacher's data is isolated in its own space. One teacher can never see another's roster, scans, or grades.
- Encrypted in transit. Every connection uses TLS (HTTPS). Files are stored with owner-only access on the server.
- Signed-in access only. The app answers nothing without a valid session, and requests are checked against their origin to block cross-site abuse.
- You can delete it. A built-in retention tool removes graded records on a schedule you set, and we will delete your data on request.
- Breach notification. Any incident involving student data will be reported to the affected school within 72 hours of discovery.
06What Markwell will never do
- Never sell, rent, or share student data.
- Never use student data for advertising, profiling, or any non-educational purpose.
- Never use student data to train an AI model, ours or anyone else's.
- Never send a student's name or family contact to the AI.
- Never let a grade go out without a teacher's approval.
07Where the law lands
FERPA
Graded work is an education record, and FERPA binds schools. Markwell's number-not-name design keeps the identified record under your control: the disclosure to the AI carries no name, no contact, and no roster link, and the re-identification key never leaves your workspace. Parents' rights to inspect, amend, and delete are easy to honor because every record is yours to open, correct, or remove.
COPPA
Children never use Markwell; the teacher does. Markwell is not a child-directed service and does not knowingly collect personal information from children. The only thing an outside service sees is a de-identified page and a number.
State student-privacy laws
Markwell is built to meet the strictest common version of state laws (California SOPIPA and AB 1584, New York Education Law 2-d, Illinois SOPPA, and their equivalents): no sale of data, no profiling, no advertising, no training on student data, school ownership of the data, and prompt, verifiable deletion.
08Your control, and reaching us
You own your students' data. You can view it, correct it, export a student's record, or delete it, at any time. If you cancel, your data can be exported or deleted on request. Questions, a records request, or a privacy concern all go to one place:
If we make a material change to how student data is handled, we will note it here and date it. Continued use after a change means the updated terms apply.