Ferpa|Sherpa

As parents we are constantly making decisions on behalf of our children. We act in what we believe are the best interests of our children and, for the most part, make the decision quickly because we understand the ramifications of our choices and nobody knows our children as well as we do. Making choices involves […]

28 laws in 15 states and 186 bills in 47 states….big numbers…all concerned with one topic, and no these laws and bills are not related to any issue made popular by a political campaign, the numbers refer to laws and bills written to protect student data privacy. It appears that not only did the conversation […]

It has been an interesting year in student privacy. It has been a very interesting year for me as I navigate a new school system with apps and integrated student portals I did not have access to before. But nothing can compare to the recent data breaches in the toy industry. So in this season […]

It has been a busy year for student data privacy with many laws passed and federal bills introduced. So no one better than super privacy geek friend, Amelia Vance to sum it up for us and give us her predictions for next year. No predictions of when the apocalypse will hit, but certainly excellent information […]

My kids have never used a rotary phone, we typically joke that my youngest swipes at any screen he can get near, we “complain” that our tweens and teens do not look up from their screens whether it is a phone, a tablet or a computer. So it is understandable that with all these technologies […]

“It’s a massive database and why do they need so much information?” That was what someone said to me the other day when talking about student data. When we think of databases, we most likely think of enormous files that contain every piece of information whether it’s needed or not. Some databases could potentially include […]

Having technology in our new schools has been an adventure. It’s exciting to watch the kids have access to technology and integrate it into their education. Even more interesting is how the technology has not taken over instruction but is a compliment to the teacher’s toolkit. And so it goes in middle school with the […]

This school year has certainly been an adventure for my family on some many levels, and I am tickled every time my kids come home with a new school letter informing me of the new app/software/technology they are using. Of course, everything that comes home is received with a healthy dose of skepticism from me. […]

A year ago I had the honor to participate in a panel at SXSWedu called “Whose Data is it Anyway”, it was an engaging conversation in which we addressed, head on the issue of student ownership of data. The tension in the debate between acknowledging student ownership and privacy was interesting in that there are […]

When I was in school (yes, dinosaurs still roamed the earth), we used to cover our notebooks or tests with our hands because we didn’t want others to see our work. We wanted to keep our school work private. When we ask our kids what they did in school we get the timeless classic “nothing” […]