Many of you have heard or read about the Equifax data breach, which essentially affects one-in-three people in the United States - 143 million people had their data potentially exposed. Unfortunately, these breaches have happened, are happening, and will continue to happen. For us at Oak Grove School District, these breaches remind us to be diligent with protecting the personal, academic, and behavioral data of our students - in fact, we are all required to do this according to Federal and California State law. The Information Technology Department at Oak Grove has systems in place to help prevent breaches into our servers and data centers. The EdTech Team has been diligently screening vendors we use for services online (see more on the District website). And teachers and staff should also take steps to prevent the leaking of student data.
In order to verify that outside vendors are handing student data correctly, our district has joined the California Student Privacy Alliance (CSPA). This organization has created an agreement between school districts in California and vendors that provide online services to those districts. This unified agreement has been approved by the California Attorney General and is designed to include all the relevant provisions of the Federal laws and State laws concerning student data (see our Data Privacy Laws if you are interested in learning more). Though this agreement will not prevent incidences like the Equifax breach, it does prevent those vendors from purposefully misusing student data (i.e. selling information for ad revenue, or using student data for targeted advertising) as well as requiring them to use industry standards to encrypt and secure data.
The practice of ensuring that student data is protected is something that will continue to grow as schools continue to gather data of students' academics and behavior. EdSurge is an online newsletter that deals specifically with technology in the education realm. One of their recent articles, Why the State of Surveillance in Schools Might Lead to the Next Equifax Disaster, addresses the concerns that we as educational professions need to be thinking about as we continue to gather data and store it on computers. The purpose of the article is not to scare us into inaction and make us shy away from using technology, but rather, to keep those ideas in mind as we introduce new data gathering tools into our district and ensure that third-party vendors are also keeping these ideas in mind as they build their systems.
Lucky for you, the EdTech team understands how valuable your time is as a teacher or staff member in Oak Grove School District and is here to greatly reduce the burden of this process for you. The EdTech team is committed to looking in the numerous vendors we use, but we can only do so if we know about them. Your role in this process is simply to notify the EdTech team when you come across a website, app, or program that you would like to use in your classroom. You can do this by filling out the Classroom Applications & Websites Used form. The EdTech Team will take it from there. Once the company you want to use is listed as "Approved" (or "No Student Data Used") on our database, you are free to use the website or program. If they are listed as "Pending Final Approval" or "Not Approved" that means that the company was not able to meet our specifications for protecting student data and thus we cannot do business with them (even if they offer free services).
Thank you for your part in helping our students' data to remain safe and secure.
In order to verify that outside vendors are handing student data correctly, our district has joined the California Student Privacy Alliance (CSPA). This organization has created an agreement between school districts in California and vendors that provide online services to those districts. This unified agreement has been approved by the California Attorney General and is designed to include all the relevant provisions of the Federal laws and State laws concerning student data (see our Data Privacy Laws if you are interested in learning more). Though this agreement will not prevent incidences like the Equifax breach, it does prevent those vendors from purposefully misusing student data (i.e. selling information for ad revenue, or using student data for targeted advertising) as well as requiring them to use industry standards to encrypt and secure data.
The practice of ensuring that student data is protected is something that will continue to grow as schools continue to gather data of students' academics and behavior. EdSurge is an online newsletter that deals specifically with technology in the education realm. One of their recent articles, Why the State of Surveillance in Schools Might Lead to the Next Equifax Disaster, addresses the concerns that we as educational professions need to be thinking about as we continue to gather data and store it on computers. The purpose of the article is not to scare us into inaction and make us shy away from using technology, but rather, to keep those ideas in mind as we introduce new data gathering tools into our district and ensure that third-party vendors are also keeping these ideas in mind as they build their systems.
Lucky for you, the EdTech team understands how valuable your time is as a teacher or staff member in Oak Grove School District and is here to greatly reduce the burden of this process for you. The EdTech team is committed to looking in the numerous vendors we use, but we can only do so if we know about them. Your role in this process is simply to notify the EdTech team when you come across a website, app, or program that you would like to use in your classroom. You can do this by filling out the Classroom Applications & Websites Used form. The EdTech Team will take it from there. Once the company you want to use is listed as "Approved" (or "No Student Data Used") on our database, you are free to use the website or program. If they are listed as "Pending Final Approval" or "Not Approved" that means that the company was not able to meet our specifications for protecting student data and thus we cannot do business with them (even if they offer free services).
Thank you for your part in helping our students' data to remain safe and secure.
