Data Governance | Protecting Student Privacy

Guidance

Policies for Users of Student Data Checklist

This PTAC Document aims to assist schools and districts in crafting data use policies to ensure appropriate protection of students’ data. While it is not mandatory to develop a data use policy, the U.S. Department of Education recommends doing so as a best practice.

Guidance

Checklist for Developing School District Privacy Programs

This document was developed as a companion piece to the video Developing a Privacy Program for your School District. The document provides an overview and rationale for why districts need, and should take the time to create and implement a program to protect personally identifiable information from student records.

Guidance

Checklist: Mapping Data Flows

This guidance document is intended to help educational agencies and institutions create visual “maps” of how their data flows in the data systems. Including maps in data governance plans can help organizations better understand what data are in their systems, where the data reside, what sources they come from, why those data are collected, what limitations or restrictions apply, how they are linked, and what policy questions those data are used to answer.

mapping data flow flows

Guidance

Checklist: Data Governance

This checklist is designed to assist stakeholder organizations with establishing and maintaining a successful data governance program by summarizing the key data privacy and security components of such a program and listing specific best practice action items.

Guidance

Case Study # 3: Enforcement

This case study illustrates a scenario where the Student Privacy Policy Office (SPPO) investigates an alleged violation of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, resulting in SPPO imposing a 5-year ban on sharing education data with the offending party.

Guidance

Best Practice Recommendations for SEA Websites

This document provides best practice recommendations for State educational agencies (SEAs) on presenting information about education data governance and sharing on a SEA website.

Guidance

Videos

Protecting Student Privacy While Using Online Educational Services

This Privacy Technical Assistance Center teacher training video is aimed at helping K-12 school officials to better protect student privacy while using online educational services and applications. The video, intended for use during teacher in-service days or professional development meetings, offers a short summary of the issue and provides some examples to help educators identify which online educational services and applications are privacy-friendly and protect student data from improper use and disclosure.

Guidance

Transparency Best Practices for Schools and Districts - September 2014

This webinar presents a number of best practices for schools and districts to use for communicating with parents about student data.

Guidance

Transparency Best Practices

Parents often ask questions like “What information are you collecting about my child?” “Why do you need that information, and what do you use it for?” or “How do you safeguard my child’s information?” These are legitimate questions that parents want schools and districts to answer. This document provides a number of recommendations for keeping parents and students better informed about schools’ and districts’ collection and use of student data.

Guidance

Data Stewardship: Managing Personally Identifiable Information in Student Education Records

This Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems (SLDS) Technical Brief focuses on data stewardship, which involves each organization’s commitment to ensuring that privacy, confidentiality, security, and the appropriate use of data are respected when personally identifiable information is collected. Data stewardship involves all aspects of data collection, from planning, collection and maintenance to use and dissemination.

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