ISTE 2019: State leaders, board members talk school safety, data privacy laws

On the last day of this year's International Society for Technology in Education conference, state education department leaders and board members discussed the implications of stringent student privacy laws at a time when gathering sensitive information has become commonplace and central to school safety. Moderator and Future of Privacy Forum’s Policy Counsel Sara Collins sat down with FPF’s Director of Education Privacy Amelia Vance, Louisiana Department of Education’s Ed tech Director Kim Nesmith, and Utah Board of Education’s Student Data Privacy Trainer Greg Cox to address how school leaders can begin to navigate policy and parent concerns surrounding the collection of student data. Over the course of the conversation, they tackled a number of topics around the issue. Kim Nesmith, Louisiana Department of Education ed tech, pointed out that there have been rapid changes in technology nationwide, leading to different tools and solutions available to protect student data. At the same time, she said, hundreds of school safety bills and guidelines across safety commissions, boards and state legislatures are being circulated, some of which push for increased student surveillance.