The Mendon-Upton Regional School District is demonstrating its commitment to safeguarding student data by joining The Education Collaborative’s (TEC) Student Data Privacy Alliance.
Data collection is essential for improving academic achievement in today’s modern digital learning environments, since data is pivotal in measuring student progress to steer personalized learning decisions to ensure that every child learns. While recognizing the importance of real-time data in guiding student success, school officials also acknowledge their roles as gatekeepers.
“As a school district, we have a moral and ethical duty to ensure that our students’ information is protected while using any online digital tools for learning,” School Superintendent Maureen Cohen said. “While technology may make accessing student data relatively easy, it needs to be maintained securely and confidentially, and that is a responsibility we take very seriously. Our partnering with TEC’s Student Data Privacy Alliance is vital to our district’s student data privacy efforts.”
“We are encouraged to see so many school districts demonstrating a real commitment to the safety and security of their students’ information”, said Liz McGonagle, Executive Director of The Educational Collaborative (TEC). “The Mendon-Upton Regional School District’s efforts in joining TEC’s Student Data Privacy Alliance is truly a reflection of its dedication to protecting a student’s personally identifiable information.”
The Mendon-Upton Regional School District will utilize TEC’s Student Data Privacy Alliance (SDPA) administrative and legal support to negotiate privacy terms with our software vendors. TEC’s service was launched in 2017 in response to the needs of the Technology Directors of its member districts. Many had attempted to secure signed Data Privacy Agreements (DPAs) from their software vendors but found that without dedicated administrative resources and adequate funding for legal services, it proved to be an expensive and time-consuming struggle that yielded mixed results.
TEC recognized that districts could save money and leverage negotiating strength by working together and outsourcing these specialized tasks and processes. Therefore, in cooperation with the Student Data Privacy Consortium, TEC developed a statewide Data Privacy Agreement (DPA) that now spans five states: Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. These legally enforceable documents articulate a vendor’s responsibilities and the duties required to protect student data in compliance with all applicable federal and state privacy statutes, including FERPA, PPRA, and COPPA.
TEC serves over 240 school districts in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Maine, and Vermont with expert legal counsel and experienced contract administrators. To date, they have achieved over 1,700 signed vendor agreements.
For more information about the Mendon-Upton Regional School District, go to https://www.mursd.org. For more information about TEC’s Student Data Privacy Alliance, go to https://tec-coop.org/data-priv....