With Guest Bloggers Brian Crowley and Jamel Greer*

This past July, the U.S. Department of Education released the Transparency Best Practices for Schools and Districts, a new set of guidelines created to improve relations between school districts and parents surrounding school districts’ collection, maintenance, and distribution of student data. The new guidelines seek to keep parents more informed and if properly implemented, such guidelines are intended to create a uniform standard to which school districts may be held accountable.

The new guidelines arose out of the Privacy Technical Assistance Center (PTAC), a subdivision of the U.S. Department of Education, which serves as a hub for resources related to data privacy and security practices related to education. School districts throughout the United States regularly collect and store data on their students including test scores, discipline records, special education needs, etc. In addition, many school districts distribute this information to third parties such as educational agencies in order to target and improve student academic achievement. This interest at time runs contrary to the interests of parents who are increasingly concerned with the risks associated with such information being collected and shared with third parties. The guidelines established by PTAC strive to strike a balance between the two so that parents will now know what information is being collected, why it is being collected, how it will be used, and what other parties may have access to this information.

The recommendations put forth by PTAC are broken up by the following topics:

1. what to communicate with parents;
2. how to communicate about data practices and;
3. how to respond to inquiries.

Within each topic, school districts are advised on the best practices in communicating with parents that go above and beyond the legal obligations to which they must adhere. For instance, under the topic of what to communicate with parents, school districts are advised to publish a list of data that they regularly collect, as well as to provide the purpose behind why the information is collected and with whom it will be shared. As digital technology continues to advance exponentially, school districts can look to proactive measures such as these guidelines in order to avoid potential legal pitfalls associated with the collection and distribution of student data.

*Jamel Greer is a first year Franczek Radelet associate and his Illinois bar admission is currently pending.