Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)

The Methacton School District (MSD) believes that the use of state-of-the-art and emerging technology is essential to quality education and that education is the shared responsibility of the student, school, family, and community. 

 

The growing availability of online educational resources are providing teachers with new and exciting methods to improve, enrich, and diversify the delivery of curriculum and instruction to students. As such, MSD utilizes third-party online educational resources to directly support our curriculum and student learning objectives. Each resource listed below has been evaluated and approved by a team of classroom teachers, technology integration specialists, and district administrators to ensure students have access to tools that support and enhance student learning. 

In order for our students and teachers to take advantage of these resources, certain personal identifying information may be requested by the third-party companies at the time of account setup. Often the information they seek is the student’s name, in order to create an account that will provide a customized learning experience for the student. 

MSD takes the responsibility of protecting our students’ data very seriously. Therefore, MSD abides by the United States federal law (15 U.S.C. §§ 6501–6506) Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Under COPPA, content providers must provide parental notification and obtain parental consent before collecting personal information from children under the age of 13. However, the law permits parents to grant permission to the district to act as the parent’s agent, whereby the district can consent to the use of student information on the parent’s behalf. Your acknowledgement of the handbook permits the district to act as your agent in this regard.