Summary

SB 82 (Open States or Utah Legislature) created the first “Student Data Backpack,” providing access to parents, guardians and authorized LEA users to the learning profile of a K-12 student in a secure electronic format called the “Student Achievement Backpack.” It consolidates data currently collected on the student into the Utah Student Record Store and allows data to follow the student securely from school to school, throughout the learning cycle of the student. A ground-breaking step in providing parents and teachers with clear data on students, SB 82 helps ensure that data is being used in a timely fashion by appropriate parties and to the best benefit of the student.

Legislative Analysis

The “Student Achievement Backpack” is defined as a complete learner profile for a K-12 student in electronic format, following student from grade to grade and school to school and accessible by parent, guardian or authorized LEA user.

This bill defines an authorized LEA user as either a teacher, an individual employed by the LEA to provide instruction to the student or an individual specifically authorized to access data in the Student Achievement Backpack.  Parents and legal guardians are also defined as authorized users.

Under current Utah law, data collected on students is stored in a series of separate silos, making easy access for teachers and administrators virtually impossible. This bill forces the Utah State Office of Education to consolidate the student data collected from LEAs into a “Utah Student Data Record Store,” cloud-based and accessible by web-browser to authorized users. This allows a centralized hub where authorized users may access data and request that student data be transferred from one LEA to another.

Security is paramount in this bill and the State Board of Education is charged with ensuring that the storage of data complies with FERPA and prevents unauthorized access of student data.

Part of the Student Data Record Store must include a Student Achievement Backpack, accessible to authorized users (but with an emphasis on parents and guardians). This backpack must ensure:

• It is a uniform, transparent reporting mechanism for individual student planning.
• It provides a complete learner history for postsecondary planning
• Teachers have access to a student’s complete learner profile.
• Teachers and Administrators can use it to diagnose student’s learning needs (through the use of use of data already collected by the State Board of Education).
• Provides parents and guardians with a simplified way of accessing their student’s learner profile and taking an active role in the education process.
• Allows disaster to be mitigated by using cloud-based data storage and collection.

The bill stages the rollout of the Student Achievement Backpack in three phases, expanding access to data for authorized LEA users in 2014 and 2015 before finally expanding access to parents and guardians in 2017.

Detailed Vote History: Legiscan |  Open States

Approved by Governor Gary Herbert on 3/28/2013