Introduction
California Streaming, powered by CCETC, Monarch Solutions, BoClips, and SchoolDay, is redefining how educational apps can operate without exposing students’ Personally Identifiable Information (PII). By leveraging tokenization, California Streaming demonstrates that data privacy and usability can coexist, setting a model for how content providers, vendors, and districts can collaborate safely.
This case study explores the challenges California Streaming addressed, how tokenization works within the platform, and why it serves as a showcase for modern K–12 ecosystems.
The Challenge: Delivering Content Without Sharing PII
California Streaming’s goal was to provide students and educators with rich digital content from providers such as BoClips, while ensuring that student PII did not leave district systems. In a typical setup, content providers traditionally require access to private student data to manage accounts or track usage. The core question became: Could a platform deliver a seamless user experience without exposing PII?
“California Streaming and SchoolDay gave us a way to safely provide modern digital content while keeping student data completely private.” – Rosalina Blanco Madera COE, Library/Media Specialist
The challenge was how to allow content providers to work with student accounts without sharing names, emails, or district-issued student IDs, creating a privacy-first experience that preserved full functionality for users. California Streaming became the ideal testbed to explore this solution.
Data Gets Copied Everywhere
To understand the problem that we are creating this showcase around, imagine all your students and staff’s information—names, emails, school IDs and other private information —as files in a single filing cabinet at your school office. It’s easy to keep track of and secure.
Now imagine every app or software your school uses wants a copy of those files, instead of one filing cabinet, there are now dozens of cabinets scattered across different locations, sometimes far away in the cloud, each controlled by a different company. Schools have no clear visibility over where the data is, who can access it, or how it’s being used. This data sprawl is dangerous because the more copies that exist, the harder it becomes to prevent unauthorized access or respond quickly in the event of a breach.
The Solution: Tokenization in Action
California Streaming implemented tokenized PII through SchoolDay, transforming how apps interact with student information while maintaining functionality and user experience.
Family names, emails, and other privately available unique identifiers are replaced with tokens before leaving the SchoolDay Platform. These tokens allow content providers like Monarch Solutions and BoClips to deliver videos, resources, and search results without ever seeing raw PII. Educators and students experience intuitive discovery across multiple providers using tokenized identifiers, while the underlying system maintains full compliance with privacy requirements.
Integration is straightforward thanks to open standards such as OneRoster 1.1, and the system’s architecture allows districts to maintain full control over their data. Districts can revoke access or audit usage at any time, and content providers receive the information they need to function without ever handling sensitive data.
“Anonymization Tokens let us run the platform exactly like before, but now sensitive information never enters our system—only the anonymized data,” said Monarch Solutions’ CEO, Mike Voseipka. “SchoolDay not only dramatically improves data privacy for schools, but it also eliminates data risk and allows us to easily comply with state and district data privacy requirements as an EdTech company.”
How It Works:
- SchoolDay Data Vault acts as the data orchestrator, generating tokens and passing them to Monarch Solutions and BoClips.
- Apps see the tokens and can link accounts and activity without ever accessing raw PII.
- Districts maintain full control, able to revoke access or audit usage at any time.
Implementation Highlights
California Streaming brought together CCETC, SchoolDay, Monarch Solutions, BoClips, and over 40 participating California school districts. The system tokenizes first names, last names, email addresses, and other identifiers needed to link accounts across providers.
Teachers and students experience a seamless, intuitive platform that delivers content reliably and efficiently. Open standards and developer-friendly integration provided by SchoolDay reduced technical friction, allowing the pilot to launch smoothly.
“For our teachers and students, California Streaming simply works. It delivers rich, engaging media with zero friction and total confidence that their information stays protected.”
– Brian Thomas, Director of Innovation, Tuolumne County Superintendent of Schools
Outcomes & Benefits
California Streaming demonstrates how apps can function without ever handling PII, producing measurable benefits. Privacy is built in by design, as student information is never exposed to vendors. Districts meet FERPA and other state and federal privacy requirements effortlessly. Onboarding new vendors or content is faster and safer, with no compromise to the user experience.
Students and educators enjoy full functionality without friction, while content providers can participate with confidence, knowing compliance risks are mitigated. Key benefits include:
- Privacy by Design: No PII exposure to vendors
- Streamlined Compliance: Easy adherence to FERPA and state privacy requirements
- Minimal Operational Burden: Fast, safe onboarding for new vendors and content
- Preserved User Experience: Full functionality for students and educators
- Vendor Confidence: Providers can participate without compliance concerns
“We can safely integrate more providers without having to expose students’ data. It’s proof that privacy control and usability can work together to protect students, schools, and edtech companies.”
– Robert Iskander, SchoolDay CEO
Strategic Vision
As a showcase project, California Streaming demonstrates the potential of tokenized PII. It provides a zero-trust example approach, where PII stays with district systems, yet the platform functions fully. This approach could be extended to more districts and vendors, illustrating that privacy-first digital content delivery is both possible and practical.
Conclusion
California Streaming highlights the power of tokenization to protect student privacy while delivering a seamless educational experience. By using SchoolDay to tokenize data for Monarch Solutions and BoClips, the platform eliminates exposure of sensitive student information, delivers a modern and intuitive user experience, reduces vendor compliance risk, and sets a benchmark for privacy-first EdTech.
“Our partnerships prove what’s possible when privacy and innovation move forward together. By aligning with trusted EdTech partners, CCETC created a secure ecosystem that protects students while expanding access to world-class content.”
– Brian Thomas, Chair, California County Educational Technology Consortium (CCETC)
California Streaming is not just a platform—it is a proof point for the future of secure, student-centered digital learning.
