SOPPA Information for Teachers -- Part 2

 This post is part 2 on my series of informational posts about the SOPPA law changes that take effect July 1, 2021. It's not often that laws regarding student privacy trickle down to the classroom teacher level, but this one does. If you're wondering why I appear to be dragging my feet when it comes to sharing what exactly classroom teachers need to do to work within compliance, I assure you there is a method to my madness!

Quite often, teachers are given directives without any kind of backstory. I could easily lay out what you need to do for SOPPA, but I am willing to bet you will also want to know why the heck you have to do that! This is where the feet dragging comes in! I want to be sure to ex
plain this enough that we teachers understand what is happening.

In my last post, I tried to give some context regarding SOPPA. This week, I hope to help you understand what is required of operators. Operators are the organizations that provide the online services we ask our students to use. The operators have access to student information that we may not even be aware of, and that has not escaped the eyes of those who keep an eye on that! That's why SOPPA requires operators to maintain the following:

• Implement reasonable security practices to protect student information
• Delete a student's information upon request
• Publicly state the types of data they collect
• Notify schools of any data breaches
• Never engage in targeted advertising
• Never rent or sell student information
• Never disclose student data

Why does this matter to the classroom teacher? Because if you're like me, you don't have an ever-loving clue what kinds of data is collected from students by these operators, nor do you know what kind of security practices they have, nor do you know about data breaches, nor do you know what they are doing with the student data, nor do you care, I'm guessing! Other people care, though, and that's why this is in place. 

Because of this, teachers may find that some of the services they've used in the past with students don't comply with SOPPA, or they may discover that something they want to use doesn't comply, and that can inhibit what happens in the classroom. 

Next week: the school's responsibilities!

Resources for this post:

• Illinois Compiled Statutes information about Student Online Personal Protection Act
• Learning Technology Center of Illinois legislation brief -- Student Online Personal Protection Act (SOPPA) Changes
• SOPPA Teacher Presentation shared by Phil Howard, Lake Zurich CUSD 95
• Ready or Not: Legal Matters, Illinois Association of School Boards
• The Adoption of SOPPA May Provide a Tough Lesson for Schools that Fail to Comply, Local Government Lowdown, Tressler LLP