STUDENT DATA PRIVACY:

School District 63 is committed to protecting student privacy. There are numerous federal and state laws that govern student records and student privacy including the federal law commonly referred to as FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act), ISSRA (Illinois School Student Records Act), and a recent Illinois law called SOPPA (Student Online Privacy and Protection Act). Our Illinois State Board of Education has more information for parents that can be accessed here and the U.S. Department of Education also has resources for parents about student records and student data at this link. A video here from the U.S. Dept. of Education can be viewed for more information about the topic.

The district has filters and firewalls in place to protect our students from accessing harmful information on the Internet and protect the privacy of our student information. The district also utilizes LearnPlatform, a third-party platform, that provides us with insights to help us evaluate whether apps, websites or software platforms are effective and information on how these relate to student privacy. We as a district approve the website, apps, and software platforms to be used by staff, students, and/or parents. Sometimes the websites, apps, or software platforms will only be approved and used for certain groups. Please visit our Public Product Library at this link here. 

School District 63 creates, collects, and maintains certain student data elements to provide a richer educational experience for students for our curriculum and a more individualized learning experience and are compiled in our Student Information System. The third parties require some components of this student data to provide usernames, passwords, and other data elements to access and track student achievement as well as report it to the school. Not all our student data is shared with third parties and none of our third parties own or sell student or school data. The student data elements the district collects, maintains, or discloses to approved third parties vary based on the app, site, or other educational software. Many of our apps, sites, and other educational software platforms we disclose: 1) student names, 2) student emails based on the student’s name, 3) district-issued student number, 4) gender, 5) ethnicity, 6) Learner category labels such as Individual Education Plans or English Learners without any specific personally identifiable information, 7) district-issued student ID, 8) student grade level.

Only a few of our approved apps, sites, and other educational software platforms do we disclose more information: 1) student names, 2) student emails based on the student’s name, 3) student number, 4) gender, 5) ethnicity, 6) Learner categories such as Individual Education Plans or English Learners, 6) student ID, 7) student grade level), 8) student school, 9) student birthday, 10) parent demographic information such as parent address, phone number.

As a reminder, we only disclose the amount of personally identifiable information (PII) that is required by the app, site, or educational software to help us with understanding how students are learning and growing. We do not collect or share any social security number, financial, or other PII with anyone. We also make sure that the apps, sites, or other educational software we use do industry-standard encryption to keep the data elements we collect safe and vet our operators and vendors with a legally binding data privacy agreement to make sure we protect our PII data that is collected. If there are data breaches that our vendors/operators have and are shared with us then we will contact the families about it to communicate the breach.

STUDENT RECORDS:

Refer to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974, and the Illinois School Student Records Act of 1975. All surveys requesting personal information from students will comply with Board Policy 7:15 (Student and Family Privacy Rights.)

RIGHTS OF PARENTS/GUARDIANS AND STUDENTS:

Federal and State laws grant parents/guardians and students certain rights relating to the student records maintained by the School District, including the right to inspect, copy, and challenge student records.

For more information on student records click here. 

STUDENT DIRECTORY INFORMATION:

The name of your child will be released periodically, if applicable, for the academic honor roll, as a member of a school sports team, as a winning recipient of a school award or contest, or to Medicaid for billing purposes. If you do not want your child’s name included, please notify the building principal.