EDTECH: You’ve accomplished a lot in the eight years since you started the consortium. Is there more to do?
SMITH: I do feel really proud about how much we have accomplished over the past eight years. However, when I travel around the country, there is still a lack of awareness in many places. As successful as we’ve been, there’s still a lot of work to do to really shore this up across the country.
EDTECH: What do you think is preventing schools from making student data privacy a top priority?
SMITH: There just aren’t enough resources and manpower and time to do everything that’s required. There are so many small school districts that don’t have the resources.
Until it comes to be raised as an issue, either through community awareness, parents speaking up, or a state law or an incident that has happened, a lot of districts without resources just are not going to address it. There are too many other priorities that they’re worried about.
EDTECH: What do you tell people when you present on this topic?
SMITH: You can buy tons of student data online. We have an obligation to protect students physically and while they are online. We must make sure we’re not allowing their identities to be stolen before they are even out of K–12.
The consortium has tried to make it easier. Our goal is to get these very useful applications into the hands of teachers and in front of students quickly and safely, knowing that they’ve been vetted and that privacy has been addressed.
LEARN MORE: See how this Illinois district won the Trusted Learning Environment Seal.
EDTECH: What about apps that teachers find and use on their own?
SMITH: It could come back on the teacher for having improperly shared certain data with a vendor via an app. So, districts must build awareness among teachers to really create a secure environment.
Teachers, meanwhile, must realize that the district is helping them by vetting these apps. It takes the burden off them if it turns out that the vendor is doing things they shouldn’t be doing with the data.
EDTECH: Any other tips that schools should know about creating a more secure environment?
SMITH: Microsoft and Google make it easy to share information, but what some schools don’t know is that without a security wrapper monitoring those tools, they are probably sharing a lot of student data publicly, or to more people than they should. I recommend a security wrapper to make sure that no student-level data is being inappropriately shared.
WATCH NOW: Advanced Google tools help protect student data from being shared publicly.
EDTECH: How can school staff get started on their student data privacy journeys?
SMITH: Start by visiting the school district’s policies around tools and ensuring that you’ve got the right policies in place. And be patient. It is a multiyear process to go from an unaware district to a district where the culture is changed to respect the privacy of students.
EDTECH: What kind of impact do you think your work has made on ed tech?
SMITH: Streamlining those privacy obligations has really had a huge impact on the whole ed tech marketplace. Now schools are having real conversations about what’s expected, and vendors that want to do the right thing know that they must make changes to their applications and their policies.