Student Data Privacy

The Sudbury Public Schools obtains student data privacy agreements for all of its online resources through our membership with the Student Data Privacy Consortium (SDPC).  Although the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) protects children under 13 from commercial use of their data, these contracts extend that standard to all of our students.

Occasionally vendors are unable to commit to signing these contracts.  In many cases this is because the company lacks a robust legal team to review and sign agreements from school districts, and prefers to rely on its own privacy policies.  In those cases, the SDPC recommends that if a particular online resources is identified by having instructional value, the school should have parents read the company's privacy policy and sign a waiver to allow their child to use the resource.  The only resource used by Sudbury students that requires a waiver is listed below. 

Resource-Specific Privacy Waivers

In addition, to their privacy policies and federal laws, the Sudbury Public Schools uses data practices deliberately designed to mitigate risk, including not using student names in most online systems and only sharing the minimum data needed to make a resource useful in the classroom.

Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) 

COPPA applies to commercial companies and limits their ability to collect personal information from children under 13. COPPA does not preclude schools from acting as intermediaries between operators and parents in the notice and consent process, or from serving as the parent’s agent in the process of collecting personal information online from students in the school context, when parents have provided permission for student Internet use under the guidelines in this handbook by signing below. The school's use and sharing of student information is solely for education purposes. (http://business.ftc.gov/documents/Complying-with-COPPA-Frequently-Asked-Questions. Also 64 Fed. Reg. 59888, 59903)