Breaking Up With Edtech Is Hard to Do EdSurge News

pWhen Kerri Wallâs school district decided not to renew its fiveyear contract with an edtech company last spring she didnât expect the hardest part to come after the breakupppAs the senior digital innovation administrator for the School District of Indian River County in Florida â and designated student data privacy officer â Wall needed to confirm that the vendor had deleted student and parent information from its systems Her sales contact promised to connect her with engineering âin two weeksâ That was in JulyppThe silence isnât just frustrating Itâs risky Wall signed a document with the Florida Department of Education making her personally responsible for ensuring that student data remains secure By October she still had no confirmation that the company had purged personally identifiable information such as names cellphone numbers grades and guardian detailsppData offboarding isnât just a matter of courtesy itâs a matter of compliance Federal laws like FERPA Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act require schools to protect the confidentiality of student records while statelevel regulations such as Californiaâs SOPIPA Student Online Personal Information Protection Act Ohio SB29âs 90day data deletion requirement and Floridaâs student data privacy laws set additional expectations for deletion and security ppâI worry this could open us up to liabilityâ says Wall âA year from now we might have lost access to the platform If the company hasnât supplied the historical communication file how do we comply with public record requests and does that put me at risk professionallyâppWallâs experience is far from unique Across the country districts are scrutinizing their edtech portfolios â motivated by budget cuts privacy concerns and the need to streamline Yet many are discovering that ending a relationship with a vendor can be harder than starting oneppWhen contracts end vendor support often vanishesppYears ago Wall tried to sunset a behavioral management platform but her contact stopped responding when she mentioned switching products ppâAt the end of the day Iâm still the customerâ she says âI might even come back in a few years when youâve worked out the bugs Treat me professionallyâppSteven Langford chief information officer CIO for Beaverton School District in Oregon has formalized his âbreakupâ process because vendor engagement is so inconsistent Since February his district has retired 59 tools taking an average of 72 days â longer than the 60day contractual requirementppâSometimes itâs hard to get the right personâ he says âMaybe one vendor signed the contract but another one holds the data The challenge is getting anyone to engageâppEven when vendors respond districts face a deeper dilemma How do you prove that data no longer existsppStacy Hawthorne chief academic officer at Learn21 and board chair of the Consortium for School Networking CoSN recalls a Colorado district asking how a vendor could guarantee deletion The vendorâs legal team admitted âWe donât know Youâre proving a negativeâppLaura Pollak supervisor of NASTECH data privacy and security service at Nassau BOCES in New York says her team has uncovered vendors holding on to unencrypted student data long after contracts ended including information from trial users who never became customersppâSome people think obfuscation is deletionâ says Pollak âMaybe they canât delete data because their systems are shared with other clients making it impossibleâppTodd Borland executive director of technology for Tulsa Union School District in Oklahoma tries to verify deletions by sending files with dummy variables âWeâll go from 15000 students to two kidsâ he says âBut at some point weâre taking their word If they have a backup they could still have our dataâppThe uncertainty unnerves him âWeâre stewards of our kidsâ data If it could get compromised thatâs not OKâppThings get even messier when companies are sold Borland recalls having contracts automatically renewed by a new owner who didnât understand the prior agreement â or the districtâs privacy standards âThe new company may have no idea what weâve done Itâs a nightmareâ he saysppMelissa Tebbenkamp an independent consultant and former CIO experienced a data breach involving a product her district hadnât used in seven years ppâWhy did they still have my dataâ she asksppThat incident prompted her to design a formal offboarding process Still she admits âWe just have to trust theyâre doing what theyâre supposed to do contractuallyâppThat trust she emphasizes makes the contract language critical âA contract is not for when things are good but for when they arenât Lean on the language to make it rightâppPollak once requested official certification of data destruction and discovered the vendor had never received such a request before âDistricts donât know they can ask and contractors donât know they should issue itâppHer advice Read the deletion terms carefully âWe all assume that by terminating the contract that means itâs getting done but it doesnâtâ she says In one case her team discovered that deletion requests had to be submitted through a portal they could no longer access Eventually the company had to accept the request via emailppJun Kim director of technology for Moore Public Schools in Oklahoma believes clear communication is the best protection His top breakup trigger is when companies go silent about product issues âTell me whatâs broken and let me work through itâ he says âDo not ghost meâppExperts agree that prevention starts before the partnership begins Hawthorne calls it the golden rule âGet a data privacy agreement in advance Youâll have leverage if they donât destroy your dataâppYet Tebbenkamp notes that many districts skip legal review for lowcost or free tools âTeachers signing up for free products do not get reviewedâ she says âThatâs a gap we canât ignoreâppLangfordâs team in Beaverton has built communication into every step of its offboarding workflow They alert teachers early track tool usage and make the list of retired software public for familiesppHe wants to see most closures meet the 60day standard but acknowledges the human side âWe have to keep working with vendors to explain what software is in use which data fields are being held and that those data elements are removed when theyâre no longer neededâppFor Wall the stakes are more than procedural Florida law requires her to certify proper data disposal within 90 days That deadline passed months ago with the vendor she has been dealing with through no fault of her ownppâItâs frustrating that I wasnât offered the chance to speak with anyone higher upâ she says âI shouldnât have to work so hard for a company we had a fiveyear history withâppAfter EdSurge contacted the vendor in October a company representative responded within a day apologizing for the delay They explained that Wallâs request required a manual export delayed by the backtoschool season and said the company was following up with her to resolve the issue But the experience she says has permanently changed how she views vendor relationships ppEnforcement often lags behind technology leaving districts to interpret and shoulder the risk themselvesppAs the number of digital tools used in schools continues to grow so does the volume of student data crossing private servers Advocates are calling for stronger vendor accountability standardized data deletion certifications and federal guidance on how long vendors can retain student information after contracts endppThe edtech boom transformed how schools teach and track students but it also left a trail of digital fingerprints few can erase As the next wave of privacy regulations takes shape the real test for the industry isnât how much data it can collect but how responsibly it can let goppEllen Ullman is a freelance education reporter specializing in technologyppis an editorially independent project ofppAbout EdSurgeOur TeamEthics PoliciesSupportersppAwards Media PartnersAdvertise With UsSubmission GuidelinesppEventsJobs BoardWebinarsppAbout EdSurgeOur TeamppEthics PoliciesSupportersppAwards Media PartnersppAdvertise With UsppSubmission GuidelinesppEventsJobs BoardWebinarspp 2025 All Rights Reservedppp