Last updated: 6/15/2025, Content here written by Chris Orban and STEMcoding Education Ohio
What is the Student Data Privacy Consortium?
Many states have laws that govern both K12 student data, and the behavior of entities that have access to that data. Increasingly, districts are operating with guidelines that sites that require student log-ins should be assumed to be off-limits unless or until it can be vetted and an agreement with the owners of the site worked out, which is understandable given the need to protect student data.
An organization that has responded to this situation where there is a need both to protect student data but also to "streamline" the task of vettting educational software and websites that students would potentially use is the Student Data Privacy Consortium. The short version of this note is simply that stemcoding.herokuapp.com is a registered site with the Student Data Privacy consortium.
What does it mean that stemcoding.herokuapp.com is a registered site with the Student Data Privacy Consortium?
Specifically this means that at least one district has signed a data privacy agreement with STEMcoding Education Ohio to allow use of stemcoding.herokuapp.com in their schools using the template provided by the Student Data Privacy Consortium. This does not mean that stemcoding.herokuapp.com is approved for your school (unless you live in that district which happens to be in Ohio) but it means that there exists a student data privacy agreement that can be used as a template for a new student data privacy agreement that applies to your school.
How can I see the existing data privacy agreement?Schools/districts that are a member of the Student Data Privacy Consortium have access to a database that contains this document. You can also email stemcodingohio@gmail.com to ask for a copy of this document.
What else should I know?
The student data privacy consortium has a few regions and there are slightly different templates for student data privacy agreements in each of these regions in order to comply with the laws in different state legislatures. For the student data privacy agreements that have been signed thus far, the region on those documents is described as Massachusetts, Maine, Illinois, Missouri, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont, and Virginia. If your location is not included on that list, that's ok, please just send us an email at stemcodingohio@gmail.com to let us know and we can work with you and with the Student Data Privacy Consortum to figure out a student data privacy agreement for your district.
Why isn't STEMcoding Education Ohio listed as a member of the Student Data Privacy Consortium?
The non-profit STEMcoding Education Ohio manages stemcoding.herokuapp.com which is listed as a "resource" in the Student Data Privacy Consortium. According to their webpage there are (at the time of this writing) 11,698 resources that have student data privacy agreements in their database and stemcoding.herokuapp.com is one of those resources. But STEMcoding Education Ohio is not actually listed as a member of the Student Data Privacy Consortium because vendors need to pay a significant fee each year to be listed as members on their website, and membership is not a requirement for our web resource to be listed in their database or for staff members from the Student Data Privacy consortium to assist in writing up student data privacy agreements with districts and schools.
Who should I contact with questions about data privacy agreements?
Please email stemcodingohio@gmail.com for any questions about data privacy agreements