If your administrator or IT department is asking about SLP Toolkit compliance with the Pennsylvania student data privacy laws, we've got you covered. You can find information about how to comply with the regulations below. Although we are well versed in privacy statutes, we are not legal experts (we stick to speech pathology and software). So you should consult your district about how to fully comply too.
1. Summary
Operators are required to comply with FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act):
Access to student data will be restricted to those that need it
Student data won't be released unless approved by state and local authorities, with the exception of de-identified aggregate data
Contracts between districts and providers will include data destruction & data use guidelines
Providers will not sell, market, or advertise to students or use their data for any of the same
SLP Toolkit has procedures in place to cover all of these plus much more. In addition to reading our basic privacy policy (here) and procedures (here), you can generate a student data privacy agreement (see section 3 below).
2. Useful information
You can see all the student data elements that we collect, along with the reason we collect them in the knowledge base article below. You can print out a copy or save a PDF for your records.
We use subcontractors to store and access student data. Their information and their policies concerning privacy and security are listed in the knowledge base article below.
SLP Toolkit complies with FERPA and more information can be found in the article below.
SLP Toolkit uses best practices to securely store and transmit data to the SLPs with authorized access. You can read more about how we keep your data safe in the article below.
3. Data Sharing & Privacy Agreement
The PSPA is a collaboration of Pennsylvania school districts that share common concerns around student privacy. The goal of the PSPA is to set standards of both practice and expectations around student privacy such that all parties involved have a common understanding of expectations. Here is a link to the Pennsylvania Student Privacy Alliance within the SDPC. PSPA
For school districts that are Pennsylvania Alliance members, we've got you covered. You can download the agreement they have provided here (click here).
NOTE: If your district would prefer a generic agreement, you can generate and download a signed data sharing & privacy agreement (DSPA) using this form (click here).
Hopefully, this demystifies the Pennsylvania student privacy laws and you can get on with helping the students. As always, let us know if there are any questions about this or other privacy standards by sending an email to privacy@slptoolkit.com or contacting support.