Effective September 7, 2026. This policy covers the mobile application Norm — Classroom Recognition for iOS and Android, published by Clay Shumate of ElevateTheNorm.com.
The short version
Norm collects nothing. There is no account to create, no server to sign in to, and no analytics. Everything you enter — class names, student names, recognition, warnings, notes, room changes — is written to storage on your own device and stays there. It is never transmitted to us or to anyone else, because the app has no ability to transmit it.
We cannot see your data. We do not have a copy of it. If you delete the app, it is gone.
What the app stores, and where
Norm keeps the following in local storage on your phone or tablet:
- Class names, meeting days, and class times you enter
- Student names you enter or paste
- Recognition, warnings, remediation, and administrative referrals you log
- Student of the Week and Student of the Month awards you record
- Classroom changes you record (seating, lighting, routines) and any notes on them
- Contacts home that you log
- Private notes you write about a student
- Your notification preferences
All of it lives in the app’s own storage area, which the operating system keeps private to the app. No part of it is uploaded.
What the app does not do
- No user accounts, logins, or profiles
- No servers, cloud sync, or backups controlled by us
- No analytics, telemetry, crash reporting, or advertising identifiers
- No third-party SDKs that collect data
- No access to your contacts, photos, camera, microphone, or location
- No student-facing features, logins, or public displays of any kind
- Nothing is sold, shared, or disclosed — there is nothing to sell, share, or disclose
Notifications
If you turn on reminders, they are scheduled locally by your device using the class times you entered. They are not push notifications and do not travel through any server. Nothing about your classes or students leaves the device in order to deliver them. You can turn them off in the app or in your device settings at any time.
Copying and backups
The app can copy a student record or a full backup to your device’s clipboard when you ask it to. That is a deliberate action you take, and where the copied text goes afterward is entirely up to you. We are not involved and receive nothing.
Children’s privacy (COPPA)
Norm is a tool for teachers. It is not directed to children, and children do not use it.
Under the Federal Trade Commission’s COPPA guidance, an app is not collecting personal information when it “interacts with personal information that is stored on the device and is never transmitted” (FTC COPPA FAQ E.5). COPPA also applies only to information collected online from children (FAQ A.10) — in Norm, every entry is made by an adult teacher. On both grounds, Norm falls outside COPPA’s collection requirements.
Student records and FERPA
We want to be precise here rather than reassuring.
FERPA obligations attach to schools and to the vendors that receive student data on their behalf. Norm never receives or maintains student data, so we are not a party to your school’s FERPA obligations. There is no data-sharing agreement to sign with us, because there is no data sharing.
What this policy does not claim is that FERPA is irrelevant to you. Records a teacher keeps about students in the course of their duties may still be education records belonging to the school, and your district’s own policies may govern them regardless of where they are stored. Norm removes us from that picture entirely; it does not change your responsibilities to your district, and it does not override a building or district policy about what tools staff may use.
Your data is yours
Because we hold nothing, there is nothing for you to request from us and nothing for us to delete on your behalf. You have direct control:
- Erase everything — the Classes tab has a button that permanently clears all app data on the device.
- Delete individual records — remove a student, a class, or a log entry at any time.
- Delete the app — uninstalling removes all of its stored data with it.
Because the data lives only on your device, it is subject to your device’s own security. We recommend keeping a passcode or biometric lock enabled. If you lose the device and have no backup, the data is not recoverable — we have no copy.
Changes to this policy
If a future version of Norm ever adds a feature that transmits data — cloud sync, roster import, or messaging routed through a server — this policy will be updated before that version ships, and the change will be disclosed in the app. The current version transmits nothing.
Contact
Questions about this policy or the app can be sent through the contact page.