Goedde's student data privacy bill clears Senate

BOISE - Concerns about national Common Core Standards for K-12 public schools were expressed during the development of a student data privacy bill that cruised unanimously through the Idaho Senate Tuesday, Sen. John Goedde said.

“Yeah, there have been concerns as we started talking about Common Core . . . There have been concerns about data being shared,” said Goedde, R-Coeur d'Alene, the Senate floor sponsor of Senate Bill 1372. “I mean, there have been all kinds of concerns.”

SB1372 contains an emergency clause - meaning that if it clears the Legislature, it would become law immediately upon the signature of Gov. Butch Otter. Most Idaho laws go into effect July 1, the start of the new state fiscal year.

The bill passed by the Senate Tuesday would mandate that Idaho school districts set student data security policies and would levy civil penalties up to $50,000 for violations.

The measure also sets the ceiling for civil penalties on private vendors that violate the would-be law at $50,000.

Common Core is the generic term for what in Idaho has been termed the Idaho Core Standards - the new requirements for high school graduation that began being implemented during the current school year.

Goedde said he got the idea for SB1372 from Oklahoma state Sen. Jim Halligan at a National Conference of State Legislatures conference last summer. Goedde used a bill passed last year by the Oklahoma Legislature “as the template,” for the measure that passed the Idaho Senate 35-0 on Tuesday.

“It's also been used by eight other states during this current legislative session,” said Goedde, the Senate Education Committee chairman, referring in debate to the Oklahoma legislative model.

Goedde's legislation would create an entirely new state code section entitled the “Student Data Accessibility, Transparency and Accountability Act of 2014.”

During the Senate floor debate, Goedde credited Sen. Steven Thayn, R-Emmett, with contributing amendments to the bill. “And, that made it a better bill,” Goedde said.

Said Thayn: “This is an area of data security as it deals with our public school students that we probably should have been addressing for several years, and so, we're probably a little bit behind the curve. However, I think this bill is a step in the right direction.”

During the Senate debate, Goedde enumerated a list of supporters of SB1372, including the Idaho Digital Learning Academy, Apple, and Microsoft.

If the bill becomes law, the State Board of Education “would develop model policy to disseminate to local districts,” Goedde said.

“Local districts will set their own policy as far as data security,” Goedde said. “But if they fail to adopt or implement data policy and there is a breach, there is an opportunity for a $50,000 fine there as well.”

Both Goedde and Thayn said they would expect later changes in later years to the potential new code if SB1372 becomes law.

“I think we'll be addressing this bill probably in the next year or two with some other changes, but I think for right now this is a good start,” Thayn said.