After controversy erupted at an Aug. 17 school board meeting in West Palm Beach, Florida, the School District of Palm Beach County School Board walked back a policy that would have required medical data for student athletes to be submitted online via Aktivate, a digital platform connected to Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos.
After controversy erupted at an Aug. 17 school board meeting in West Palm Beach, Florida, the School District of Palm Beach County School Board walked back a policy that would have required medical data for student athletes to be submitted online via Aktivate, a digital platform connected to Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos.
The policy would have required all mandatory forms and medical data for the registration of middle school and high school athletes to be submitted via the Aktivate platform, instead of in paper form.
Aktivate is a private company, founded in 2021, that designs and markets software for the registration of student athletes and the submission of their medical data.
Although the school board is said to have been aware it would be signing a contract with Aktivate as early as February 2022, finalizing that deal in May, parents and athletic personnel were not consulted and not informed until July, shortly before athletic registrations for the new school year were to begin.
The policy of mandatory registration of student athletes through the Aktivate platform was also reportedly not discussed at school board meetings until several parents brought the issue to the agenda for the Aug. 17 meeting. Concerns were also raised about the usability of the software and the privacy of students’ data.
Watch the meeting below with public comment starting at 1:57:
