Getting Up To Speed: Student Data Privacy Compliance in Minnesota

Okay, everybody. We're gonna get going here. I have one zero one. So, wanna honor everybody's time. Thank you all for joining us, state of Minnesota. Great to meet you.

This is the getting up to speed around the student data privacy compliance in Minnesota brought to you by Learn platform. Here's the quick agenda we're gonna go through. My name is Rob Residore. I'm a director of partnerships, Hale from Chicago, and, have been a district ed tech director as well as teacher and some various other roles. In there, I handle I work with districts, five thousand students or or above.

Also some state level partnerships and ESAs and co ops. And I'm joined by my colleague, Hillary, She works with districts that are five thousand students or less, and we're both gonna be talking to you today about the the new Minnesota student data privacy law talk a little bit around data privacy agreements, what that looks like, building a vetting process, and walk you through the platform as well as provide any answers to questions you may have and our contact information. You'll see here I have the bitly for these slides. I'll have it on every slide. So as I go through this, you'll have access to this to follow along.

And you'll also get a copy of the recording that may have, you may share, pass along to your colleagues as you so please. So where are we? This is the state of k twelve right now. This is pulled from the incident map, perhaps you've seen this before. You can see the types of cybersecurity incidents that have taken a place across in the country. And Minnesota doesn't have as many as perhaps maybe some of the more, populous areas, but certainly not excluded from these types of, incidents.

And you can actually go to this cyber security incident map, find your district, find other districts, look around your area across the country and see who potentially has reported, which is the key point here, a cyber security incident. And this is really tricky information to get at because this is all only of those who have reported. So there's it's certainly potentially under reported. And so why data legislation is getting implemented? So learn platform works with districts across the country. I, as I mentioned, come from Chicago, so down here in Illinois, many of you are probably familiar with or have heard of Sopa.

The legislation that required vendors to be talking about the privacy information the PII that was, collected on any of your students and post all of the contracts and data privacy agreements that hit last year. Learn platform ended up working with about a hundred or so districts helping them become compliant, but also beyond that building an efficient and effective ed tech system. And perhaps you've heard of Sopipa that's been in for a number of years, prohibits, commercializing any student data. And Edlaw two d came out, I believe, two years ago in New York a couple years ago. Very similar.

And it's it's really these types of things that we're seeing across the country that I think spurred, Minnesota's legislation despite it having been in talks for a number of years. Probably shouldn't have come out as too much of a surprise to the folks here that it passed. And, here we are, and we're gonna offer some resources today that can help you really shore up this, whether you move forward with a formal partnership with Learn Platform or you walk away with some of the free resources here. Our goal is just to facilitate a understanding of what the law entails and how you can start to look at this a little bit more systemically. And it's also not lost on us really the number of incidents that we're seeing across the, the districts here in the country.

And that forty two states have some type of privacy law in place. And, this is really what it kind of helps us think of when we start to see all of this is how do we really take a look at all the moving parts around having a safe and compliant system while at the same time balancing innovation. This is a tricky type of undertaking, and many of you on the call are now tasked with this job of adhering to the law, building transparency within your district, and in some cases being the the tough person that's gonna have to go out and say, we can't use this tool anymore, Mrs. Jones or mister Jones, we can't have our kids sign up for this. Right? And this is gonna really take a bit of a delicate balancing act so that we can make sure we're upholding innovation within the district as well.

So we've put together a little learn platform, student data privacy checklist. You can access this from the site, and we're not gonna go too far into the ins and outs of the law, but generally these are the types of, elements that learn platform is able to help you with. And now the first one, knowing what tools are being accessed, the law doesn't necessarily state you have to have some way of looking at this, but it certainly is implied if you're having to implement and maintain a contract with a technology provider. And looking at the data elements that are being collected, and then posting a list of these operators in their in their contract. So, again, does it say that you have to step one, get a, inventory tracker to acknowledge the tools that are being used in your system.

No, of course, it does not. But it, again, is implied, and you're gonna have to have some way to do this. There are all sorts of different resources. We have a free one that we're gonna leave you with today that can help you in this journey to to get started. So we're probably familiar with the legislation in broad strokes at this point, and you'll have to read up on that as I'm not a lawyer.

Hillary's not a lawyer, but we have come across these types of legislation before. And we do know really some best practices also align with the types of things that are being asked of in this legislation. And so we first get to this data privacy agreement. Now there's a lot of discussion around whether or not this is really on the the the onus is put on the the vendor or the district. And the reality is that it can't just be the responsibility of the vendor.

To comply with the Minnesota State privacy law. There are things in there that talk about the destruction of the data within ninety days of terminating a contract that talks about. The safeguards that need to be in place for not only the employers or employees of the of the provider, but also their contractors. So if a company contracts out with a third party to do this work, you have to ensure that they have access to the to the data only, that they as on an ad as needed basis. And the the benefit of getting a data privacy agreement in place also helps to get an accurate list of these data elements.

And it's also a really great way to build this communication and trust with the parents. So if you don't have a data privacy agreement, there's plenty out there. I know Some really Rockstar districts in Minnesota have produced some that are that are modified a little bit from this national data privacy agreement, but if you're just starting out in this journey, I recommend grabbing this link here. And again, this is, the link here for the bit of these slides. This is hyperlinked within there, the national data privacy agreement has been adopted by a number of states, and there's a specific section that you can add your particular state level legislation components in there.

So our recommendation is start somewhere, put a piece paper in front of your providers that outlines the the components that you have to adhere to for this lock. Gone are the days where you're having to read through all the terms and conditions because that's, a huge daunting task, especially given the time for compliance that you're gonna have to, get two for this piece of legislation. So many districts also have a vetting process. So the other side of really getting the the data privacy agreement under wrap is starting to understand what do we do before we even begin to secure a a DPA or a contract? Presumably, there's some type of structure that you have within your system. These are some examples, not the prettiest, but that's that's kind of by design.

And some of these that we start to see within districts gets pretty large. And and as a former classroom and a teacher, teacher in a classroom. I've I've seen some of these processes, and I'm sure we've all seen teachers throw up their hands and just kinda go, you know what? I I'm not gonna do it. It's complicated, or I don't know where it is, or I'm just gonna send an email to the person I know. And there's probably a lot of that back and forth.

And the idea behind building a structure process is that first tier of screening before you even consider getting a data privacy agreement is has it passed through curriculum as it passed through procurement. Do we have we done a technical review from a safety and and transparency standpoint? And in order to do those types of components, you're really gonna need to have modern infrastructure to do So going to the days of, kind of, the horse and buggy or the one person show who's just gonna manage this through their inbox. In order that to build out a digital infrastructure. You gotta have the the right modern equipment. So the way that we see our platform in part is to build the right types of plumbing.

We think of it kind of as a subway line. So if you've ever been in some of the major cities, you've obviously seen some of the The maps here, well, our goal is to help folks like yourselves on the call and others build this through a transparent process that is clear, consistent, and repeatable. And we've partnerships with folks like common sense media, One EdTech used to be IMS Global. They managed the One roster, standards, and a handful of others and through these resources, being able to look across all of your system's ed tech tools and make informed decisions based on evidence so that we can build out a structured plan for you. So Hillary is gonna later on walk us through what this looks like.

But really, the idea here is that you're you're gonna need to have a system where you can pass through these reviews into all the channels. So how does this work? One of the first steps that we recommend getting into is identifying the most used products. So, again, we have free tools to help you do this. Hopefully, you have some way to start to look at all the tools that are being used within your system. And then within learn platform, both in the free and paid version, you can visit our privacy hub to start to look at which of these tools are collecting PII, and which of these tools use, are recommended by common sense media or, through one ed tech.

So visiting our private hub, and Hillary's gonna share a little bit more about this is a great way to use all of these resources, including your colleagues and peers who have vetted or recommended a specific app or tool. And then from there, as I mentioned, the idea is not to read through all the terms and conditions. It's flipping the script back on the vendor. So providing a data privacy agreement to your vendors and asking them assigned, and hopefully it's something potentially that's built on the national or state level privacy agreement. So you eliminate some of the back forth because that's where time and energy and resources really begins getting drained when you have to redline and negotiate with the contractors and vendors.

At this point that we're seeing across the country, many of these vendors are signing off on a state level. Or national data privacy agreements because quite honestly, it saves time on both sides. And within learn platform after you've executed that, you can add that tool to your district library so that the teachers can now see what is approved, what's potentially denied, what's supported, and then publishing this tool on a public facing library. Because as you know, per this legislation, within thirty days of the start of school, which Everybody I'm sure believes is after the startup schools, we're gonna go with that. We are looking at, needing to inform our parents and community of all the data elements on all of the vendors that are being used for curriculum testing and instruction, or testing and assessment.

And so one last metaphor here is really to get away kind of from this notion of when we've got one offs or maybe we know about some of the paid resources, and we've got a couple contracts here and there. This this really is a a kind of bundled system that's just bouncing off each other. It's a little bit messy. And the goal of this is to drive further towards something that gets us into first maybe more of a a liquid malleable state. This isn't the end point where you're starting to identify some of the key elements to look at and looking for some of those resources that are most used to getting all the way down to let's have a solid, clear, repeatable step by step process for all of your resources.

And so with that So Larry's gonna walk us through the the platform and show you what it looks like from a district teacher standpoint as well as the public and community standpoint. Hily, I'm gonna give you, screen sharing options, and I'm gonna go on mute, and go ahead. Help if I unmuted myself here. So, are you all able to see my screen yet? Awesome. Alright.

We have the district facing library. So when your teachers log in here, there's clear communication around which approved for use in which tools are safe for use according to your vetting processes here. You can customize these tags so they can be customized for an individual building grade level, teachers can sort by this approval status here under review and deny. Even now the first thing that Rob mentioned as part of a private privacy process is knowing what's being used within your district. So here in our inventory dashboard, you're able to see the total number of tools that are used that are in your library already, but you're also able to see the tools that are not yet approved for use.

So these are the tools that teachers and students are sourcing on their own. That might be putting student data at risk here and might not be in compliance with the Minnesota state law just yet. So As you scroll down, you're able to see a list of your most used tools through your least used tools, how many teachers and how many students are accessing these within your district Now this is gonna be a key list for you all because this is where you're gonna want to start putting in those privacy, agreements in place. These are your busiest tools. They're most frequent within your district.

You're gonna want these clients first. So when you look at these particular tools here, If we go into management, which is for the admin side of our population, you're able to take a look here at the privacy policies. So under acme news, you're able to see what's approved for use. You're able to see, the contract and date and sort here. For some back end management.

And then under privacy here is our privacy hub. This is where you're able to see where this tool is being used nationwide. And it's piling in a variety of different resources for you all to make an informed decision. Is this tool safe or can we automatically rule it out unsafe, also making note of whether or not it even tracks personal identifying information. So Rob mentioned earlier, Illinois, California, New York, all have very strict privacy laws.

One great way to find out if the tool is collecting, personal identifying information, Click on the state of Illinois here and you're able to see any contracts that have already been executed with that vendor when you click into a particular contract and you scroll down to the exhibit b, it marks off every piece of data being collected by this vendor in the state of Illinois. If there's no check marks That's a really good indicator that they're not collecting personal identifying information. However, this is just one resource. So you can also scroll down below. Take a look at the common sense privacy rating.

Personal information is not shared for third party marketing here, but you do see that data is collected by third parties for their own purposes. And then we also have the one ed tech trusted app, the IMS global integration here that lets you know, Is this tool using information for advertising? Is this approved for children under thirteen? Is it for compliance right off the bat? Then you do have access to the privacy and policy in terms of service too. Using all of this information as a baseline, is this safe for you to use within your district? Okay? You've decided, yes, we wanna pursue this further. We like this tool. So then that's gonna come into our requests portion of the platform, teachers can request products here and then into provider applications where you're able to see our here is, a student data privacy agreement.

You'll create a template agreement and be able to send this out to vendors directly from learn platform. So this first page general information, what is this, a data privacy agreement? By creating your application, you can add in custom questions, you can add in pdf copy of your data privacy agreement, even file upload options. This is what the vendor will see. Here's that PDF copy of your terms and conditions. They can agree to those.

Answer additional questions about the best contact what personal identifying information they're collecting. Down at the bottom, they're able to sign electronically and return this signed privacy agreement to you. The easiest part of this process is that we have vendor contact information built into the system for you. So under invitees, select the vendor that you're trying to add into your library here. And this will send it directly to their support team or legal team email address.

You're able to add in a point of contact. If you're working with Emily from I Excel, enter this email to her. It will go straight to her inbox. You can see all applications that you've sent, send out reminders, and this is across the district. So any of your admins, if you have tech coaches who are helping you out with this process, If your curriculum team is helping you with this process, everyone can see exactly who this privacy agreement has gone to so far.

Once you get that signed application back, you can review it, check all the paperwork, make sure their i's are dotted, their t's are crossed. And then adding that product into your library. So that brings you back here to the product library. In management, you're also able to share this product out publicly so that it is going to parents and your community, which is part of this Minnesota legislation. Under, the product, where I was earlier where we're managing this page by clicking public product visibility, it shows this out to parents.

And this is what that public facing library is gonna look like for you all and your community. Parents can come in. They can see every tool that's available within the district. They can sort by grade level. And here's their approval status as well for parents when they click into that specific product.

It takes them to the product page with privacy policy terms of service, and you can upload resources to share out publicly like the contracts and data privacy agreement. So Minnesota State law requires you to share out contract information if you have it as well as the data elements If the data elements are in your data privacy agreement, that will be one document to share out here. Parents can access it You're also required to designate a privacy office for Minnesota State law and share out contact information. You can add this in here. Please contact Rob, add our technology department hears his email address if you have any additional questions here.

If there is a data breach on a particular product, You're also able to create a custom privacy status that says something along the lines of data breach, seek more information, and when parents click in, you can add that as one of the resources that you're sharing out to your community of here's the steps in place to keep you safe. Here's what we know about this date of reach so far. Back in the library, you can even add multiple tools, at once if you so choose by going into that analysis and usage tab. You can move on to your second tool here and say, alright, let's vet this one for privacy now. Same process.

Privacy hub. Get that baseline is the safe to use. Send out the data privacy agreement, publish it to your district library for teachers to know it's safe and available for them to use and public publish it to your parent library so they have access to all of that contract information and any data breach information here within the platform. We do go a step beyond privacy as well. And with our impact reports, you're able to look at particular tools and see overall student growth as well as cost analysis on these tools.

So are they being used? Are students growing by using these tools and can we potentially save money. It's not directly related to privacy here, but another really useful function for a lot of your technology and curriculum departments. Within your district once you have this privacy locked down. Rob, I'm gonna take us back to you to summarize these last few modules here. And then we have time for some questions at the end.

Thanks. So learn platform really does a lot more than compliance to laws. You know, what what whatever we think about the particular legislation, it really does help bring best practice to your district. It builds transparency and trust. For the community, it builds systems within your organization that can help Everybody really performed at their at their peak.

When learn platform was originated, we built around the notion of how do we help to district use, evidence and information to continue to improve our our processes and really looking at final point down here on the analyze and improve, this was designed to start to look at, to what extent do these tools and resources have an impact on student outcomes. Who are these tools you're working for and in what conditions? And this is the final part of our platform. We're not gonna get into this today, but we're able to produce rapid cycle evaluations that are EsSA aligned. To pull in quantitative and qualitative data to start to look at. Again, what is the true ROI or VOI of the tools, is it having the intended academic impact that one would expect and hope for? So we've built all these other pieces along the way, which and streamlining to imply that Hillary just went through around teacher requests and interacting with vendors and also the organizing communicate portion of the modules where we're building out a library for the public.

We're looking at usage analytics and so much more. So on this last, slide here is our departing information. Here's our contact information as well as the Minnesota webpage. And I also put that in the chat. You can go here to push out the browser extensions or are newly released iOS app where you can look at some of that for free and use it to your heart's content.

This will give you your starting point to begin to look at usage data within your district. And, you could sign up for a demo of the platform. There's a privacy checklist there. And, all sorts of information that you can go check out on the Minnesota webpage. So Hillary and I will stick around and answer any questions if there are any.

But with that, we are going to provide you with a little bit of extra time near day and depart here. So thank you very much for coming. Feel free to stick around, ask questions, type into the chat, or, go off mute and go ahead and ask. Thank you very much, everybody. Are we gonna get to, listen to a bit more of that jazz music you had earlier, Rob, as we're waiting here on some final questions.

We could do that, but you're the one sharing the screen, so I won't be able to. Yep. Andy, we will share out a recording of this. And we're happy to, do a specific walk through, with anybody as well on a demo. So there are fourteen people left in this group.

Feel free to ask questions, go off from use. The platform gathers usage information. Paul asked, how does the platform gather usage information? So there's a browser extension that sits on Chrome or edge browsers, in addition to an iOS component that will begin to document all of the the web pages, the tools, the apps that are being visited by teachers and students. So as long as it's within our database, of over ten thousand tools that's gonna start listening to that information cataloging that and putting it into your own specific usage library. Solarurn platform is a vendor to help school district streamline on to make sure they're in line with data privacy.

You could say that, Amy, but what our goal is here is to help pull together trusted resources and help you make better informed decisions. So we're not out necessarily as the policing of data privacy, but we are building the to help you make better decisions around this and providing you with trusted third party information to pull together to align with with data privacy. We also do work with a number of vendors on the other side of the platform who come to us to facilitate independent research studies And as part of that, when they're agreeing to do that, they're also agreeing to adhere to specific data privacy requirements and qualifications. And with that, we badge or produce a certification for the vendors that's called Impact Ready. And if you see that badge within the platform, whether it's on the free version paid version, which you can go check out today, you'll see the impact ready badge for any of those vendors who have already adhered to or agree to adhere to data privacy, requirements and agreements.

Yeah. Great. Alright folks. We are gonna go and feel free to reach back out to Hillary or myself. And, again, you will get this recording in your inbox and feel free to send it along to your colleagues, reach out directly, visit the web page, and go forth and prosper. We wish you all the best of luck, and, feel free to reach back out. Thank you much.