As global learning experiences become more common in K–12 education, schools increasingly send staff and students abroad for cultural exchanges, academic competitions, service trips, and more. While these trips offer...more
Back in 2017, at the dawn of the first Trump administration, there was much concern about how school leaders should address issues involving “undocumented” students including the possibility of visits by the U.S. Immigration...more
Connecticut’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) generally provides access to records created by public agencies (including school districts). However, the FOIA contains an exemption from disclosure for “educational records”...more
On November 27, 2024, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signed into law Senate Bill (SB) 104, adding Ohio to the list of a dozen states with restrictions on bathroom access by transgender individuals....more
Despite being just a few months old, Senate Bill 29 (SB 29) – a significant piece of student data privacy legislation – will soon look quite different. On December 4, both the Ohio Senate and the Ohio House unanimously passed...more
A federal judge in Ohio just concluded that a university’s practice of conducting room scans for remote testing was unreasonable and a violation of a student’s Fourth Amendment privacy rights. The August 22 decision in...more
As school districts increasingly rely on Zoom to facilitate online classes, and in many cases are expressly directing students to download and use the app, it implicates new legal concerns for the company....more
In light of CDC recommendations regarding COVID-19, North Carolina Governor Cooper issued an executive order closing all public schools in North Carolina for two weeks, beginning Monday, March 16, 2020, through March 30,...more
Arkansas schools often face parent requests to see all the school’s documents and emails about their child. Schools may wonder whether a parent has a right to such sweeping information. Federal law gives parents the right...more
Among other things, the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (“FERPA”) grants parents access to educational and related records concerning their child. Under FERPA, “education records” are broadly defined as...more
New guidance issued jointly by the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services advises schools that most health information relating to students at federally-funded elementary and...more
This summer, Pearson notified a handful of Illinois school districts that its AIMSweb 1.0 Platform had experienced a data breach that impacted over 13,000 account holders nationally. ...more
Federal Updates - Last week, U.S. Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL), Ed Markey (D-MA), and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) sent letters to numerous education technology companies expressing concern about “vast amount of data being...more
California’s San Diego Unified School District recently disclosed that it had sustained a data breach when multiple phishing emails from malicious hackers were used to gather login information of staff members throughout the...more
In a lengthy, published opinion, the New Jersey Appellate Division recently ruled on four appeals from different trial courts (that had reached conflicting results) about the ability of a nonprofit advocacy organization for...more
Recently, educational institutions have become targets for hackers and the victims of significant data breach incidents. No institution is invincible from attack. Within the last two years, preeminent universities such as...more
School Districts Should Notify Parents About April 1 Opt-Out Deadline - A federal judge has ordered the California Department of Education to release information about students who are attending, or who have attended,...more
While Congress continues to consider (but not act on) nationwide student data privacy initiatives, the states continued to lead the charge in 2015. Earlier this year, we reported that, in 2014, 36 states introduced 110...more
In working with school districts and charter schools, our firm has learned that many clients may have entered into agreements that lack key contract terms necessary to protect student data privacy. In other cases, we have...more
Four pieces of legislation intended to improve online privacy and protections for Delaware residents were signed into law by Governor Jack Markell on August 7, 2015. Collectively, this legislation will impact a broad range of...more
High-profile data breaches and cyber-attacks on well-known brands and businesses have dominated the news cycle for more than a year. Yet during the same time, less visible, but no less important efforts have been made to...more