Trust: The Foundation of Education.

America’s schools have, for the last century, been the center of our communities.

We send our children to you to build their foundation of basic knowledge that will help them be successful and contribute to society. We gather there on Friday nights in the fall to root for the football team and in the winter to cheer on the basketball team. Our schools are the center of the arts in many of our smaller villages, towns, and cities where we go to enjoy the talents of budding artists, musicians, and enjoy the annual high school musical production. We have come to trust our schools in too many ways to list. And now, in the cyber world of today, we want to trust you to protect the privacy of our children.

This presents a new challenge to schools across the nation. You are not only tasked with the great responsibility of educating every new generation but must also protect their data and effectively communicate privacy measures to their parents and communities. The Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), along with the School Superintendents Association (AASA), the Association of School Business Officials International(ASBO), and the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) recognized this challenge.

These groups collaborated with twenty-eight school systems across the US in 2015 to create the Trusted Learning Environmentand help school leaders to effectively communicate their privacy efforts to parents, communities and other stakeholders and assure the school system is adhering to best practices and building strong cybersecurity practices. Kevin Krueger, CEO of CoSN, was quoted in the press release announcing this initiative:

“When looking at the evolving digital tools and ongoing related activities in classroom settings, we agree with parents: they need assurances that student data is protected. That is why school system technology leaders and our diverse education leadership partners are putting forth this national program that builds a culture of trusted learning in all K-12 school systems.”

Earning the Trusted Learning Environment Seal is not easy, nor should it be. Only twelve school systems have been awarded the TLE Seal as of April 2017. It takes a commitment from leadership, an effective data security program, and the implementation of education procedures that ensure transparency and advance curricular objectives.

Matrix Integration has developed an assessment based on the TLE standards that will guide you and your school system in your efforts to join the twelve other schools that have earned the seal. It is our goal to help every school corporation and district in Indiana and the surrounding states to build this next level of trust with parents and communities. We have a long history of working with school systems to deliver strong and meaningful technology solutions that support your mission and we can help you prepare for and achieve this mark of distinction.

Matrix Integration specializes in information technology solutions for K-12 education including IT consulting, security, communications, networking, implementation, wireless, data centers, managed services, remote monitoring and disaster recovery.

*TLE is a voluntary and ambitious program to which every school system, public, private, parochial and charter, should aspire. You can learn more about this program and join the movement at www.trustedlearning.org.