There was a time when keeping student records meant maintaining a manila folder that was tucked away in a locked filing cabinet for which only one or two officials had a key.
Those days are long gone.
Today, nearly everything required throughout a school day, from lesson plans, quizzes, and group projects to personally identifiable information (PII) detailing each student’s grades and health records, is digitized. Student information is no longer tucked away in a file cabinet drawer. It’s perpetually transferred among apps, platforms, and systems, often crossing networks that schools don’t even know they have.
And with each transfer of information, the risk grows exponentially larger.
Here’s the thing: Protecting information isn’t something you do once and forget about. It’s an ongoing effort, and the stakes continue to mount. Cyberattacks on schools are on the rise, privacy regulations are becoming stricter, and the number of apps being used is multiplying.
But SchoolDay’s zero-trust ecosystem orchestration transforms the approach to student data privacy.
Why Prioritizing Student Data Privacy Can’t Wait
As students return to the classroom, IT leaders and district administrators have a heightened awareness of the pressures faced when it comes to protecting student data privacy. Student data is not just “data.” The information is personal, it’s sensitive, and it’s connected to identity. If that data is exposed, the impact on the student can last for years, potentially leading to identity theft, targeted scams, and a loss of trust that’s hard to get back.
Laws like FERPA and GDPR lay the groundwork for enhanced confidentiality. But obligatory compliance is not enough. It only takes one unapproved app or one poorly managed integration to open the school, students, and staff to enormous risk. That’s why the smartest schools treat privacy as a shared responsibility. K-12 IT leaders can’t – and shouldn’t have to – handle it alone anymore.
SchoolDay’s Tokenized Future for Schools and Vendors
SchoolDay’s zero-trust ecosystem orchestration simplifies the entire data exchange process between schools and vendors. If a school wants to use a third-party app that delivers an innovative education opportunity for their students, they can select from the SchoolDay catalog pre-vetted apps from vendors that have committed to meeting strict security standards, including no exchange of PII. Through SchoolDay’s zero-trust ecosystem orchestration platform, we provide:
For Schools
- A seamless, secure, and scalable solution designed to help schools and districts protect student information while enabling safe and efficient data exchange with education technology providers.
- Real-time PII monitoring dashboards and reports, to identify and control school district data sprawl across the edtech ecosystem.
- MFA without the need of a second device, using encrypted biometrics that increase security for students and staff without storing PII data.
- Tokenized CPaaS enabling schools to send SMS, voice, and email communications without compromising PII.
“SchoolDay has allowed us to be able to integrate all of our EdTech products into a single SSO portal. This helps eliminate our co-dependencies on the so-called free third-party integration platforms while relying on SchoolDay’s excellent customer support.” – Uma Shankar,Head of IT at Alachua County Public Schools
For Vendors
- Automated data exchange with easy-to-use APIs that help speed up customer onboarding, all while reducing overhead and increasing data security.
Streamlined deployments into schools using our easy-to-implement API framework, and reducing the business risk associated with consuming student data. - Anonymized rostering, removing personal information before sharing only needed data with applications.
“For over eight years, Lightspeed Systems has partnered with SchoolDay (previously by GG4L) to ensure school districts have seamless and accurate rostering within our solutions. With the complexity of district data systems, SchoolDay’s flexibility in integrating student, staff, and class data allows us to deliver the best experience for schools. Their expertise in roster data management helps power our solutions, ensuring districts get the insights and safeguards they need to support learning and student safety.” – Rob Chambers,VP, Product, LightSpeed Systems
Keeping Pace with Change: Professional Development for IT Leaders
Tech keeps evolving. But privacy risks evolve even faster.
That’s why the SchoolDay Academy, powered by Coursera, is rolling out more than 9,000 courses designed to help IT leaders in schools and edtech app development. Among these courses are opportunities to earn professional certificates from top companies like Google, Meta, Microsoft, IBM, and AWS. There are more than 40 professional certificates to choose from. SchoolDay Academy provides a wide range of opportunities to advance your career, help you keep up with changing demands, and protect your school or app more effectively.
Learn more about SchoolDay Academy.
Make Student Data Privacy Your Priority This School Year
Managing student data privacy and data exchange can’t be a one-time undertaking. Student data management is a living, breathing process that requires collaboration and an ongoing dialogue among stakeholders.
Schools that embrace this process as an ongoing, evolving effort will find themselves better ready for whatever’s next, whether that’s AI-powered learning tools, new interoperability rules, or the next round of privacy legislation.
For school districts and their IT leaders, protecting student data isn’t just a line item on the IT department’s to-do list; it’s a shared responsibility. SchoolDay’s zero-trust ecosystem orchestration provides schools and vendors with the structure, tools, and systems needed to keep data secure, and SchoolDay Academy prepares IT leaders for the demands of the future.
