Student Privacy

Introduction

The Ouachita Parish School Board (OPSB) is committed to ensuring the privacy, security, and confidentiality of student data while enabling that information to be used to improve student outcomes. This means doing more than complying with state and federal privacy laws. It entails adopting best practices in protecting student privacy that ensure sensitive information is treated as such. Because this is an evolving field, one of the biggest challenges facing the OPSB is keeping pace with changes in policy and technology.

State Law

The Louisiana legislature recently passed legislation, R.S. 17:3914 (Act 837 of 2014), which provides for limitations and prohibitions on the collection and sharing of student information. Additionally, the legislature passed R.S. 17:3913 (Act 677 of 2014), which requires that Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) and local education agencies (LEAs) make available information about the transfer of students’ personally identifiable information. Subsequently, these bills were amended in 2015 (Act 228 of 2015) to address implementation issues based on LEA feedback. These laws require that LDOE adjust all processes that require the exchange of personally identifiable information (PII) with LEAs and that LEAs implement additional processes to protect student information.

The LDOE has published a Student Privacy Guidebook to help explain these laws.

Federal Law

Prior to the passage of R.S. 17:3914 and R.S. 17:3913, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act(FERPA) served as the primary legislative mandate related to student privacy. However, if state legislation is more restrictive, state law prevails over federal law. In almost every instance, R.S. 17:3914 is more restrictive than FERPA, so the state and LEAs must comply with state law.

An important exception to this is when federal law is stated in mandatory terms as a state law cannot take precedence. This is the case for the mandate that LEAs share students’ information with military and college recruiters. Federal law (20 U.S.C. 7908) requires LEAs to provide college and military recruiters students’ names, addresses and telephone numbers unless a parent (or student of majority age) opts out; therefore, schools can continue to provide student directory information, which must be defined by LEAs, to military recruiters.

School Board Policy

Ouachita Parish School Board policies regarding student privacy, RS 17:3913, RS 17:3914, and FERPA can be found in our Student Privacy Policy.
 

Student Directory Information

If you do not want the Ouachita Parish School Board to disclose any or all of the types of information designated below as directory information from your child’s education records without your prior written consent, you must notify the Ouachita Parish School Board in writing.  Ouachita Parish School Board has designated the following information as directory information: 

• Student's name
• Address
• Telephone listing
• Electronic mail address
• Date and place of birth
• Major field of study
• Dates of attendance
• Grade level
• Photograph/video
• Participation in officially recognized activities and sports
• Weight and height of members of athletic teams
• Degrees, honors, and awards received
• The most recent educational agency or institution attended
• Student ID number, user ID, or other unique personal identifier used to communicate in electronic systems but only if the identifier cannot be used to gain access to education records except when used in conjunction with one or more factors that authenticate the user’s identity, such as a PIN, password, or other factor known or possessed only by the authorized user
• A student ID number or other unique personal identifier that is displayed on a student ID badge, but only if the identifier cannot be used to gain access to education records except when used in conjunction with one or more factors that authenticate the user's identity, such as a PIN, password, or other factor known or possessed only by the authorized user. 

Data Sharing Agreements

Below you will find a list of all of the vendors that we currently have data sharing agreements with. These data sharing agreements are available for viewing at the Ouachita Parish School Board Central Office. If you have questions or concerns, would like to file a complaint, or would like to make an appointment to view a data sharing agreement, please call our Central Office at 318-432-5000.  A copy of the Ouachita Parish PII contract addendum template can be downloaded at Ouachita Contract Addendum.docx

District-Wide Agreements

The Ouachita Parish School Board has signed data sharing agreements and/or addendums with the following vendors:

• Achieve 3000
• Affordable Travel
• Albritton Photography
• Allen, Green & Williamson, LLP
• American Reading Company
• Amplify Education, Inc.
• Aristotle K12
• Ascend Education
• Barobo, Inc.
• Blackboard Inc. - EXPIRED
• Bloomz, Inc.
• Boom Learning (Omega Labs)
• BrainPop, LLC
• Broaden Horizons
• Capstone Digital dba MyOn
• Career Compass of LA - EXPIRED
• Cengage Learning, Inc.  - EXPIRED
• Classcraft Studios, Inc.
• Class Creator
• ClassTag, Inc. 
• Class Twist, Inc. (Class Dojo)
• Classwork Co (Classkick)
• Clever, Inc.
• Code.org
• CommonLit, Inc.
• Companion Corp.  - EXPIRED
• Crawford Photography
• Curriculum Associates, LLC
• Data Recognition Corporation (DRC) - LAS Links Online
• DBQ Company
• Desmos, Inc.
• Discovery Education, Inc.
• Don Johnston, Inc. - CO:Writer
• EDgear , LLC
• Edgenuity, Inc.
• Edmentum, Inc.
• EDpuzzle, Inc.
• Educational Materials Specialists, Inc. (Reading Coach)
• Edulastic
• EIS Medclaims, LLC
• Explore Learning, LLC  -  EXPIRED
• First West – Kids Hope
• First West – Project Help
• Focused Fitness, LLC
• Follett School Solutions
• Generation Ready, Inc.
• Go Guardian
• Graduate Sales LTD.
• HATCH, Inc.
• Hayes Software Systems
• Healthy Roster, Inc.
• Holtzclaw Photography
• Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company
• Imagine Learning, Inc.  
• iStation
• IXL Learning
• Jay’s Photography
• Jostens
• Kuder, Inc.
• Learning A-Z, LLC
• Learning Ally, Inc.
• LearnZillion
• Legends of Learning
• Lexia Learning Systems, LLC
• Lifetouch National School Studios, Inc.
• Louisiana Delta Community College
• Louisiana Office of Student Financial Aid
• LSU AgCenter
• MasteryConnect, Inc.
• Mastery Education (People’s Education Inc.)
• Mastery Prep  -  EXPIRED
• Mathmatica
• McGraw-Hill Education
• Merge Labs, Inc.
• MobyMax, LLC
• Morehouse Community Medical Center
• Motivating Systems, LLC – PBIS Rewards
• National Restaurant Association Solutions, LLC
• Nearpod
• Notable Inc (dba Kami)
• Pacific Metrics Corporation
• Parlay Ideas, Inc.
• Peardeck
• Pearson Education, Inc. (Q-Global) (MathXL, etc.)
• ProExam
• Reliance Communications, LLC  -  EXPIRED
• Renaissance Learning, Inc.
• Rethink Autism, Inc.  -  EXPIRED
• SchoolMint
• School Status
• Screencastify
• Side Study Add-on Suite
• SnapMe Photography
• Special Olympics
• Storyboard That
• Studies Weekly, Inc.
• Stukent, Inc.
• Success for All Foundation
• Sunburst Digital, Inc.
• Texthelp, Inc.
• Tobii Dynavox, LLC
• University of Oregon (DIBELS)
• VKidz Holdings, Inc. (dba VocabularySpellingCity and WrtingCity)
• Varsity Tutors
• West Monroe Community Center  -  EXPIRED
• Wowzers, LLC
• Xtra Math
• Zearn
• Ziplet
• Zoobean

State-Wide Agreements

The Ouachita Parish School Board has signed data-sharing addendums to LDOE contracts with the following vendors:

• ACT, Inc.
• Barobo Robotics
• Carasoft  (Google)
• Code.org
• College Board
• Computer Aid, Inc. (SER)
• Data Recognition Corporation (DRC)
• EdNavigator
• ELPT (Regents of the University of California)
• eScholar
• Louisiana Community and Technical College System (LCTCS)
• Management Services for Education Data (MS/EdD)
• NEPRIS
• National Center for Educational Services (NCES)
• Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., Inc. (AEPSi)
• Red e Set Grow, LLC
• Southern Region Education Board
• Teaching Strategies, LLC