STUDENT PRIVACY

Educators and their institutions across Louisiana are committed to ensuring the privacy, security, and confidentiality of student data while enabling the information (i.e. attendance, demographics) to be used to continuously improve student outcomes and the services and systems that benefit them.  

For more more information on action plans, federal, and state laws on student data privacy, please see Louisiana’s Data Governance and Student Privacy Guidebook. Additionally, the quick links below provide helpful resources for stakeholders' questions. For more information, email Laura Boudreaux, Director of Research and Data Privacy, at laura.boudreaux@la.gov or Catherine Gill, Data Privacy Coordinator, at catherine.gill@la.gov.

Quick Links to Resources


Parental Communications

Louisiana schools collect parental consent for online services used for instructional purposes, financial assistance, and other programs where student information is shared. The documents below serve as examples of parental consent in education.

  • Consent Templates 

    • Explicit (Opt-Out): permission granted by parents for schools TO NOT engage in disclosing students' personally identifiable information (PII) to third party organizations 

    • Implied (Opt-In): permission granted by parents for schools TO engage in disclosing students' PII to third party organizations. 

    • Conservative: permission IS or IS NOT granted by parents for schools to disclose students' PII to third party organizations.

  • Louisiana Office of Student Financial Assistance (LOSFA) Parental Consent

    • Consent Form: permission to schools by parents for student data to be shared for purposes of TOPS, college scholarships, grants, aid programs, and college admissions. 

    • Consent Cover Letter: schools' explanation to parents they are required by state law to make an election at the beginning of child's eighth grade year, or when child enters first public school after eighth grade, as to whether they give or deny consent for the school to collect child’s PII and disclose it to the Louisiana Office of Student Financial Assistance (LOSFA) for TOPS and other financial aid.


POLICY AND PROCEDURES RESOURCES

  • Sample Acceptable Use Policy for Internet and Other Electronic Resources

    • NCES: The National Center for Education Statistics is located within the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences. It collects and analyzes education related data then reports the statistics in publications. Four samples of policies and agreements are found in the link.

  • Sample School Board Policy

  • St. Tammany School Board (pg. 6-10): The district handbook helps students and parents understand student records, FERPA, collection and access to data, and other policies and procedures.

DATA SHARING AGREEMENT (DSA) RESOURCES

  • 2022-2023 Data Sharing Agreement and Addenda: A list of DSAs that are applicable to their school systems. The agreements, by way of addenda, allow individual school systems to opt in, so that they may also receive the services provided and protect the privacy of their students. This chart is a tool to assist in determining what agreements school systems need to opt into and next steps.

  • Current Addenda Tracking Chart (open in Google Chrome): A chart for school systems to track and review the status of their DSAs' details. Please use the "District Code" menu to review and click on the "Agreement Link" beside each agreement to see details. 

  • Exhaustive list of LDOE data sharing agreements: As directed in R.S. 17:3913 (Act. No. 677 of 2014), information about the transfer of personally identifiable student information is made available on this website.