Naven
The useful questions are the same whichever app a school is looking at.
Who administers the accounts? An app inside the school's own domain is administered by the school, which can create, suspend and delete accounts and set who students can contact.
Who can contact a student? The safest set-up limits contact to people the student already knows, or makes every new conversation a request.
Is harm handled before or after delivery? Most services act after somebody reports a message. Screening before delivery is only possible on a service that is not end-to-end encrypted.
What does the contract say? In the United States, a vendor that holds student records should accept the school's direct control as a school official under FERPA, and in California the contract terms Education Code 49073.1 requires.
Where the common options fit
- Google Chat, in Google Workspace for Education: inside the school's own accounts, administered by the school. Best when everybody is in the same domain.
- Microsoft Teams for Education: the same, for schools on Microsoft 365, with classes and assignments alongside chat.
- Remind and ClassDojo: built for messages between school and families rather than between students.
- Naven: for groups that cross devices and accounts — clubs, teams, families and classes — in a browser, with every message screened before it is delivered.
How Naven works with a school
A school can create accounts for its own students, and may give consent for those accounts in place of each parent for students under 13. Naven accepts the school official designation in a signed agreement, uses student data only to provide the service, and deletes it on request and within 60 days after an agreement ends. The app is free; a private, custom version for one school or district is quoted per organization, and nothing is included until it is agreed in writing.
What Naven does not offer
- No certification: no government certifies COPPA or FERPA compliance, and Naven holds no Safe Harbor seal and no SOC 2 or ISO 27001 certificate. What it does for each rule is set out on its compliance page.
- It is not end-to-end encrypted, because it screens messages.
- The screen is automated and misses things; calls are not screened.
- Data is stored in the United States. A province or school that requires data to stay in Canada cannot use it today.
More questions
Is Naven FERPA compliant?
No government certifies FERPA compliance. FERPA binds schools, and Naven meets its side through a signed agreement that accepts the school official designation. Its compliance page sets each requirement against what Naven does.
Does Naven work on school Chromebooks?
Yes. It runs in Chrome with nothing to install, as long as the school's network filter allows navenapp.com.
Can a school see students' messages on Naven?
Naven gives a school no window into student conversations. A school-managed device can have its own monitoring software, which is a question about the device rather than the app.